Battlecraft Academy
by TheyWhoAreOne
Summary: In the far north of the Ferrum Region, Battlecraft Academy is an expansive school surrounded by many different ecosystems while located in Helio City, one of the most technological and economical advanced cities in the region. But don't let its standards fool you! The school is surprisingly easy to get in that even a clown could do it! Though getting out?
1. Ch 1: The Clown Who Dreams

Laughter can make anyone smile except for the guy who is the cause of said laughter.

Despite the all the resounding laughter, everyone fought their hardest to keep their eyes open and on the young clown juggling three pies while riding a unicycle.

"A Huwuck Hucwk!" The clown with a fruity afro, squeaking green nose, and powdered face gave a goofy smile as he continued to go further, seemingly oblivious to the banana peel laid in front of his path.

The laughing clown went forward and eventually the inevitable happened as his unicycle fell off the peel and all three pies threw up in the air. The clown tried to get back up, but then one of the pies he threw fell right on top of him—followed by another one—and finished by the last one. Everyone saw the clown filled with apple, cherry, and blueberry leftovers slowly pouring down his colorful get up and burst out laughing in hysterics.

At this moment, an old but happy man wearing a fancy red suit and top hat pranced into the center of the ring and pointed his cane towards the silly looking clown. "Let's give it up for Arz the Clown!"

The crowd cheered as the clown quickly tried to get back up. He made a grand bow, which was followed by a large ripping sound coming from his pants. The clown made a sheepish look as he covered his buttocks, before quickly running from the stage while more and more people laughed to the point where it became so hard to breathe.

As soon as the clown got out of the sight of everyone and the ringmaster was hyping up the next act, the flustered look of the clown instantly turned into a dour frown.

The entertainer with a frown walked into a back room and reached for a prepared towel for him.

"Ahh! Hardwin, another spectacular performance you placed out there." After rubbing the makeup off his face and taking off the silly fake afro, the green eyed, blue messy haired teen looked up to see a large muscular man that towered over ten feet tall with a bald head but had the finest mustache in the land.

"Thanks, Braum." The teen automatically responded as he started stripping his clothes. "Your performance was amazing as usual as well."

"Is something wrong, Hardwin? You seem down."

The boy sighed. Braum was always the biggest man in the circus in strength, mind, and heart. Of course he would catch it.

"It's just… I'm just a bit drained today." He lied as he put on regular clothes. "This was my last show of the day, see you tomorrow, Braum." The young man quickly left the changing room as he made his way out the circus tent.

As he passed by all the booths, he gave everyone he knew a smile and a wave before finally making it back to his trailer a little ways out of the circus.

"Ziggs, Magi, Zu, I'm home!" The clown shouted out as he walked into his trailer. He spotted a zigzagoon lying down on the couch. The sleepy Pokémon raised his head and then quickly went back to sleep after seeing who it was.

"Sleepy as ever, aren't you Ziggs?" The boy rolled his eyes as he made his way towards the sink.

"Eeeee!" A zubat came flying towards the young man with a smile on his face.

"Well, at least someone appreciates me." Hardwin sarcastically commented as he petted the zubat's head. "How ya doing, Zu?"

"Eeee!" The bat Pokémon then flew away to a specifically designed perch that allowed it to hang upsidedown.

After seeing the bat go away, Hardwin looked down on the sink. "And how are you doing, Magi?"

"Carp." The red magikarp responded monotonously.

"Ahh! Arz, your home!" A beautiful person with long blue hair hair and a surprisingly curvaceous body entered in and hugged the young man.

The boy smiled back and returned the hug. "Hey dad. How was the Bearded Lady stand?"

The older man who looked like beautiful woman laughed in a deep voice. "Funny. I think some guys even tried to peek into my man boobs!"

"Dad, you always have way too much fun trying to seduce other men… and sometimes other women." Was it weird to have a normal conversation for a son to talk to his dad about seducing anything with hormones?

"Well I have a nice body! It seems people don't really care for my beard as much as they should." He elbowed his son. "Oh by the way, they need you to clean up the donphan area. Be sure to take a mask and gloves!" The father spoke up before a loud ringing noise caught the attention of both son and father. The man took out his phone and blinked as he read the message. "Well I gotta go, your Auntie Cruelda needs to have her stilts looked at again. See you later tonight son!" The dad quickly took out a coat and left the

The boy sighed before looking to the zigzagoon. "Come on Ziggs, you lazy bum, we've got work to do."

"Zigggg." The brown and white normal type groaned as his friend pushed him to wake up.

* * *

Hardwin stood on the side as he held up the broom and looked at his phone. The video showed how the gengar was battling the nidorino. The green eyed boy was laser focused on the screen, watching as trainers commanded their Pokémon to counter their opponent.

He was so focused that he didn't notice a stream of water hitting him in the back of his head. "Hey!" Hardwin looked back to see an annoyed look on Zig's face.

"Zig!"

"I know, I know! I just had to see this battle though. It's so cool!" Hardwin complained before his Zigzagoon narrowed his eyes and went back to getting a bucket.

Hardwin sighed.

"You sigh as much as a Pokémon calls out their name." The young man looked over to see an old, portly man coming towards him with a kind smile.

"Hey Grampa Joes. Is the last show done today?"

"It's been done for the past few hours, your father's been looking for you, son, and even without him saying so, as ringmaster, it's my job to look after my family." The old man laughed. Hardwin looked up to see that it was indeed night time and he had been spending a lot of time watching Pokémon Battles.

It was then that ringmaster's tone became a lot gentler. "Now what's the matter, Arz?"

"What's the matter? Nothing's the matter. I'm doing what I'm always doing." Hardwin took the broom he was holding and suddenly found a lot of interest into sweeping the dirt on the ground.

"Hardwin Wilburg." The young adult flinched at the sound of his name. "We maybe a lot of things, but I don't recall welcoming a liar in the Quasar Circus."

The boy relaxed before looking up to the sky. "It's just… for the past sixteen years… all I've ever been is…" He slumped and looked down in shame. "Arz the Clown, the funniest clown in the region, or kindly put, the biggest loser anyone has ever laid eyes on."

"You are not a loser. Do you know how many people you make laugh?"

The blue haired boy froze and looked back at his non-blood related grandfather. "Gramps, we both know they're laughing _at_ me."

The ringmaster paused for a second. "I get it, I get it. You're in that phase in your life where you want more for yourself and dream big. Everyone goes through it one way or another."

"It's more than that! I… I want to be a trainer!" Hardwin's eyes lit up. "I want to do something that _excites_ the crowd and me!"

"What? You like in a circus and sometimes do death defying stunts! Isn't that excitement enough?" Joes raised his brow.

The young boy dismissed that. "You know what I mean! I've been part of the circus my whole life! I wanna-I wanna see what's it's like to be a trainer!"

"A trainer? You want to be a guy that makes other Pokémon battle each other for entertainment? You do realize that you're shifting the humiliation you're placing on yourself into pain for Zigs and the others?"

"I-It's not like that!" Hardwin reacted quickly but then quickly became silent.

"The world isn't like the circus, Arz. It's much weirder and much crueler."

"That's what you always say…" The blue haired boy muttered.

"One day, you'll appreciate being here." Joe patted the boy's shoulder. "Now, we gotta get Larry's costume ready. We don't want a mishap the last time he was shot out of a cannon."

"I'll follow you in a bit. I need to finish this chore."

As the ringmaster left, Arz sighed and placed the cleaning utensils away. The normal type of the clown caught up to his friend.

"Dang it, I can't ever win an argument with gramps." The young man clicked his teeth. "I hate how much sense he's making! But what why is my only option is to make a fool out of myself for the rest of my life?"

"Zig za za go za."

"Of course you think it isn't so bad, you help out with the other Pokémon! You're not making yourself look bad almost every day!" The boy complained.

As the two made their way, they suddenly stopped as they heard a shrill scream in the night air. The two looked at each other before bolting back towards the carnival.

In the air, Arz could hear a chuckle cackling through the air as others ran away from the sound with fear in their eyes.

He turned a corner, and his heart sank with the sight before him. "Grandpa?"

There was a group of ace trainers led by a rather handsome blond man with a hitmonchan standing right beside him with his arm stretched out.

"I want my money back you old fart! This didn't entertain me at all!" The handsome adult grabbed the old man by the collar and picked him up to meet him.

"W-Why are you resorting to violence?" The old man coughed. "There's… no… need for it."

"Because you wasted my valuable time, you old fart! I can't get a refund on that!" He threw him back into the ground as if he was something even less than dirt.

"Hey!" Hardwin cried out as he quickly went towards the ring master and glared at the young adult in front of him. "What the heck man!? That was uncalled for!"

"Uncalled for?" The blond ace trainer seemed like he was the one who was wronged. "Listen, you hillbilly, you are in _my_ town. Whatever I say, goes, and the only reason why you and you freaks of nature are even close to this city is because my dad got bored and wanted to see what you were like."

"Oh my Arceus…." Hardwin stared at the man in front of him with shock. "I thought egotistic bigots like you existed only in movies!"

The other ace trainers gasped as the lead ace trainer slowly froze and opened a dark glare towards Hardwin. "What did you just say, hillbilly?"

"I mean, I get I probably look like a fool to you guys. But that's the thing about looks, they can change over time. You? You'll probably an idiot your whole life."

"H-Hardwin…" The young clown's grandfather figure looked on with horror towards his surrogate grandson as the ace trainer looked ready to explode like a volcano.

"That's it, you're dead! Hitmonchan! Beat him to a bloody pulp!" The blond trainer shouted, making his fighting type rush for the kneeling boy with his fist reclined. However, the fighting type quickly jumped back to avoid a pulse of water passing by where he would have crossed if he took a step forward to attack Hardwin.

"ZIG!" Zigs jumped in between Hardwin and Hitmonchan battle ready.

However, instead of feeling threatened, the bigot and his crew started pointing and laughing at the small normal type. "Haha! _That's_ your Pokémon?! He's as pathetic as you!"

The blue haired teen helped his grandpa up and made sure he was taken away by some of the others and brought to a safer place. He then rolled his eyes at the disrespectful young man and walked beside Zig. "At least he's much better at conversations than you. I mean, can you go a sentence without insulting somebody else? Or was that how your speaking teacher told you how to end all your sentences?"

The laughing abruptly stopped as the blonde quickly went back to snarling and clenching his fist. "I'm going to enjoy denting your skull in, hillbilly! Hitmonchan, beat up his stupid rodent!"

The fighting type charged in much faster than anyone had expected, smashing a right hook into Zig and making him skip like a rock on the surface of water. However, the normal type somehow regained his composure mid air and landed on the ground with his feet sliding on the ground.

Hardwin acted in retaliation, ordering Zig to fire a Water Pulse move. The normal type summoned a condensed sphere of water that suddenly expelled water in a fast jet stream right for Hitmonchan. However, the fighting type simply side stepped the attack and with the same speed, rushed in close and threw several super effective punches that were so strong that it gave out shockwaves with each impact.

The blonde trainer smiled and laughed triumphantly. "Hahaha! You were all bark and no bite! Hitmonchan… Vacuum Wave!" He smiled darkly as he pointed.

The fighting type did as he was told, but then spun on his heel and fired the pressurized air right into Hardwin's face! The young entertainer was blindsided and knocked into the ground.

His opponent and his followers howled with laughter. "Ha! That is what you get for speaking against me!"

The young clown wiped his mouth as he slowly got back up. Zigs growled and fired more Water Pulse attacks at the fighting type, who dodged every attack that was launched his way.

"Right! Stand back up, clown! Stand so I can knock you back down all I want to hahahaha!" The blonde ace trainer laughed maniacally.

However, Hardwin still glared at his opponent. He scoffed and looked to the side. "Why do they always laugh?"

"Huh? What was that, hillbilly? Where's your sharp tongue from earlier?" The proud young man taunted.

"Oh it's still here. I was just waiting to see if you'd at least use a word longer than four syllables, you loathsome fustilarian."

The Ace trainer scrunched his face. "Low… fus… wha?"

"Careful, don't wanna overtax that one brain cell you have." Hardwin stood back up with a triumphant smirk.

His opponent appreciated that as much as a man would appreciate drinking from an un-flushed toilet. "Oh that is it! Hitmonchan beat up that stupid rodent then him!"

The boxer Pokémon cried out as he took a step forward—

"It's show time!" Hardwin snapped his fingers. Zigs moved quickly despite all the super effective damage he took from awhile ago and fired a new attack, Icy Wind, towards… the ground?

Everyone watching the battle had their eyes suddenly widen with realization. Zigs had been firing so many water attacks that the area was now filled with water. When the normal type used an ice attack, the water on the ground instantly froze and it also caught Hitmonchan's right foot and made his left foot slip due to the loss of friction.

Zigs moved into the ice, and to the surprise of his opponent, he could skate on the ice with ease! The Pokémon slid right up to the fallen Pokémon and fired a Water Pulse at point blank range.

The pressure of water shot the bigger fighting type with such force that he flew and knocked the ace trainer away and into his posy like bowling pins.

Dripping wet, and made to look like a fool, the ace trainer struggled to get back up with the look of utter rage on his face. "That's it! You're dead! I'll kill you, you pathetic piece of—everyone! Let's all take him on!"

Whether through fear or the fact they couldn't say no, all of the ace trainer's posy threw out their own Pokémon to face against the injured Zigzagoon.

The other carnival folk, and some courageous bystanders stepped forward to help, but Hardwin threw his hand back and made a stop motion to all of them.

"Are you really going to do this? You can back off right now and that will be the end of it all." Hardwin spoke out as he looked to his opponent.

It looked like a vein was about to pop on the blonde trainer as he stood up and gave a rather mean hand gesture towards Hardwin. "Don't you dare make me laugh, you low-life scum! I'm better than you will ever be! I've got money—power! I'll have my father kick you bastards out of this town faster than you can say eviction! But not until I beat you and that rodent to a bloody pulp!"

For the first time, Hardwin's expression softened after hearing that. "Wow. I… I actually pity you now. I really do hope you become a better person in the future."

"Shut up! Kill him, you idiots! Don't just stand there!" He yelled at his gawking followers.

Hardwin shook his head sadly. "You guys didn't even notice that you were still standing on the water… Zigs, finish it."

The normal type surged with electricity which froze the bullies dead in their tracks as they all realized that the attack from the Zigzagoon had caused water to cover their area. What was worse was that none of their Pokémon had any resistance whatsoever to electricity and that they were all ground bound. With almost no time to react, Zigs fired a Shock Wave into the water trail that was only amplified in shocking every one of the bullies, including the Hitmonchan and the egotistic ace trainer.

They all screamed for a few seconds before they all fell into the ground unconscious all except the blond, young man who started this all.

Hardwin looked sadly at the trainer who looked to be trying his best to stay conscious. "The world isn't like this circus… it's much weirder and crueler. I hope you know that from now on." The winner spoke out the words that were always used on him to prevent him from going out to the world. He disliked it, but he was starting to understand what his grandpa meant by that.

"I… w…" The blonde man fell unconscious as Hardwin and Zigs quickly turned back to the ringmaster.

"Grandpa!? Are you alright?" Hardwin ran up to the old man with worry in his face despite how everyone now saw his right eye throbbing from the Vacuum Wave attack from a while ago.

"I'm fine, kiddo." He patted the clown's shoulder. "You handled that brat wonderfully."

"Zig!"

The ringmaster looked down and laughed. "Of course, you did well as well, Zig."

"Yeah, how you holding up buddy? You took quite a beating there." Hardwin kneeled and petted his best friend's head with empathy and care.

The normal type scoffed and huffed with pride. Despite the pain, it looked proud, even stronger than before. Grandpa Joes saw this… and he looked at Hardwin one more time who was smiling brightly despite being injured himself.

… Maybe… the two could handle themselves after all.

The blue haired trainer raised his brow with a playful smirk. "Wow, you look horrible. You suck at dodgingGGGAAA!" Hardwin couldn't finish that insult as Zig fire another, lesser Water Pulse at the teen's face.

Everyone laughed at how the two quickly started arguing with each other. Although, a stranger would have a hard time understanding how a human and a Pokémon were talking to each other so easily despite the obvious language barrier.

"Excuse me?" Most of the carnival folks and Hardwin looked over to see a man wearing a suit and holding a case with a rather amused smile. "You, blue haired kid."

The soaking wet teen looked at his surrogate family before looking back at the man. "Umm yes? Are you that guy's lawyer or something?"

"Oh no. I was a scout actually for a Pokémon school called Battlecraft University," The man smiled as he took out a letter and handed it to the wet boy. "I was originally here to recruit the young man you defeated over there, Kyle Hure. However, your skill with a simple zigzagoon of all Pokémon didn't just defeat him, but a crowd of Pokémon! Anyone would be a fool not to take you into our school after that!"

The young boy blinked in surprise. "S-School? For Pokémon trainers?"

The scout nodded happily. "Battlecraft University is a high level institute dedicated to teach and prepare future trainers, coordinators, performers, and others with skills and tools to take on the world by storm! We are trying to scout talented trainers from all around the world and make them greater than they ever expected to be! And you kid? You've got gumption… so what do you say? Do you want to go to Battlecraft University?"

Hardwin froze. A chance to finally become a Pokémon Trainer?! That was his dream! But…

The young man turned back sadly towards the circus folks, who were all smiling at him. His own dad walked up to him with a smile behind his beard. "Arz… go for it."

"W-What? But I thought…" Hardwin looked over to his grandpa in confusion.

"Kid, we all deserve the chance to chase our dreams." The ringmaster walked up to Arz and patted his shoulder. "Chase yours. And know, whatever happens, we'll be all cheering you on every single day."

Hardwin Wilburg turned towards the scout with bright and wide green eyes. "Yes. I would love to go to Battlecraft University."

* * *

A/N: Hello and welcome to Battlecraft University! I have always loved Syoc stories, and I thought I too could include my own take on those types of stories!

If you do wish to enter, there are going to be rules. I'm only open for the first ten slots, and I'll see if I can add more later.

First we have your OC; here are the rules for submitting: I only accept PMs for your OCs. I highly recommend not using the review button to send it.

Now for the OC structure themselves. It will go something like this if you want to submit

[Re-editted to include more specific details 7/5/2017]

Name: Hardwin Wilburg.  
Age: 17  
Gender: male  
Year and Occupation: First year and Trainer.

Profile/Back story: Hardwin Wilburg has grown up in a traveling circus for his entire life as a comedic clown doing various stunts and acts that degrade himself so that others would laugh at him and feel better about themselves. He dislikes being laughed at and dreams of one day making the crowd smile along with him rather than at him.

I recommend greatly that you make a fairly long back story/profile for your characters because the longer you explain who they are, what makes them do what they do, what their goals, what are their fears, what are their joys? What are their strengths… basically make them as detailed as possible and if you think it's enough, do twice as more details than you think is enough.*

The more detailed your character is, the easier they will be to write, so try to look up how to make characters if you are having trouble. It's what I do when I'm thinking of new characters.*

Appearance: Height 6'1, short blue hair, fair skin, green colored eyes. A medium build due to training in a circus.

Clothes: Normal ones simply include a blue sweatshirt with a dive ball logo and baggy brown cargo pants with green rubber shoes and a white t-shirt underneath.

Summer clothes: The same cargo pants, but usually wears a t-shirt and keeps sunglasses on top of his head.

Swim wear: Just shorts that are red in the front and white at the back with a Pokemon ball line on the side to seperate the two.

Winter Wear: A checkered scarf with a beanie hat and a winter coat along with boots.

Likes: Kanto based food, watching cartoons, watching Pokémon battles, training with Pokémon, playing with Pokémon, reading literature.

Dislikes: being laughed at, dislikes homework, staying still for too long, boring things for a long period of time, others being sad.

(This is the new one)

Possible Romantic interest: What does your character seek in a romantic relationship? Are they seeking one currently?

Pokémon:

Okay this is tricky. For now, you can list up to six of them. If you want the potential to capture more in the story, you can have a few Pokémon that isn't maxed out to six. I don't recommend Legendary Pokémon. And I don't want more than 2 of the same type of Pokémon, so no teams full of mudkips or something.

There is a move limit though and that is six instead of four. Also, all moves **must** be legal game-wise. I am aware of the Anime giving moves that aren't learnable, but to challenge you guys, don't. Check Serebii or/and Bulbapedia for list on legal moves. I got my moves from Serebii since it showed a longer option from previous games.

You must have at least one paragraph describing how this Pokémon knows your trainer and their relationship together.

Another rule, decide whether or not which pokemon appear before and during the story. Would you like some Pokemon to be caught in the story, or would you like them to be in base form when they arrive and evolve later? You should put that in so i have a better idea what to do.

Zig (Zigzagoon): This Pokémon was born the same year as Hardwin and so the two grew up inseparable from each other. They practiced stunts and dream battle plans out all through their life and they are so close, despite their language barrier, they both understand each other as if they could read each other's mind.

Moves: Water Pulse, Icy Wind, Shock Wave, ?,?,?

Zu (Zubat): Hardwin met this little guy in Kanto when he was 6 and the circus was performing near Mt. Moon. The poor thing was hurt for some reason and Hardwin and Zig nursed the Pokémon back to health. While, being nursed, Zu ended up choosing to stay with Hardwin and has helped out in the circus with various chores thanks to his echolocation ability.

Moves: ?,?,?,?,?,? (You guys should tell me your moves. I'm hiding mine to avoid potential spoilers.)

Magi (Magikarp): When Hardwin was 7, a conman sold Magi to Hardwin when he was alone. However, despite Magi strangely doing nothing of real interest besides splashing around on dry land, Hardwin has grown fond of the Pokémon and refuses to abandon him. Magi likes to stare blankly at others, only seemingly reacting to when Hardwin comes close to him. However, there is something off with that fish no one can explain…

Moves: Splash and Tackle. That's it.

And that is it. In theory, it should be longer than what you see up here.

Thank you! Bye!


	2. Ch 2: School In The Land Of Battles

Hardwin, Ziggs, and Magi stared—except Zu since he was blind—as they got out of the airport and entered into Helio City.

It was a grand city that was found in the far northern parts in the Ferrum Region, a region known for its aggressive battling and Synergy Bursting powers that allow even electric type moves to harm ground Pokémon. It was also famous for having some rather amazing level tech.

The boy and his Pokémon continued to stare—except Zu since he was blind—as a floating square robot hovered right in front of them. "Say cheese!"

The sudden flash of light blinded the small group—except Zu since he was blind—and the machine then slowly printed out a card. Hardwin stared at the machine before slowly reaching for the card and looking at it himself.

He raised his brow at the new ID since it was of him with an obvious black eye from his encounter with Kyle and his Hitmonchan that hadn't healed yet, giving him the impression of a delinquent. While on his shoulder, Ziggs had his pupils shrunk so much he looked like he didn't have pupils in the first place and looked like some evil spirit in the photo. Magi looked the same as usual, being in a bowl of water that Hardwin was carrying while Zu was just… flying upside down for some reason?

Needless to say, it was not a picture you would find in a calming area.

"Hey, can I get a retakeaaaannndd you're already gone." The boy deflated as he spotted the floating robot already like a hundred feet away taking a picture of someone who seemed to be ready. "Well. I sure hope that was the only thing bad that happens here."

Zu suddenly opened his mouth. " _Don't—_ **jinx it!** " What came out of the zubat's mouth were spliced voices of different people.

Hardwin put a hand up and opened his mouth, only for him to freeze and put the hand back down. "Well crud." The blue haired boy sighed as he placed the potentially traumatized picture of all of them in his pockets and walked out the airport.

The carnival raised folk were awestruck at the sight before them. It was a grand city, with towering sky scrapers, train tracks that were so high that they even reached up to the height of ten stories of some buildings. There were floating digital message boards of countless brands and commercials and people seemed to be walking around with moving digital screens in front of them.

He had traveled around the world for years, but Hardwin and the others had never come across such a high tech city yet.

Hardwin shook his head to get back on track and took out a map. He then noticed people eyeing him weirdly. Now that the young circus kid took a closer look, everyone else seemed to have some kind of headset they would put on top of one of their eyes and a screen would appear in front of it.

They were all looking at him probably because of how old fashion and how out of date he was.

He shook his head and put that thought away before looking back at the map. "Alright, it will take at least two days before school officially begins and we have to sign in. I think it's a good time to get used to Helio City and try to see as much of the school as possible, right guys?"

" _Something tells me we aren't in Kanto anymore, Toto…_ " Zu blurted out a quote from a famous old movie.

"Huh. That was strangely appropriate. I just hope there aren't singing munchkins in the next few seconds."

The four actually waited for a few seconds and looked around to see any singing midget that wasn't their auntie Cruelda.

After seeing there was no sign of a musical number coming any time soon, Hardwin took this time to begin. "So, today, we'll relax a bit and check Helio City a bit. Where could we go first? The library? The theater? Cinema?" he listed off as he checked the pamphlet.

"~ _The Candy Man can!~_ " Zu played out a voice belonging to a man singing. Zig quickly wagged his tail and smiled/panted at the suggestion.

Hardwin smiled as he shook his head. "Fine, we'll find a bakery or somewhere to eat. According to this map, there should be a bakery nearby."

And so the small carnival folk dragged their belongings and walked across the city while taking in the sights. Eventually, they came across their intended destination: Super Puff, a sweets bakery that was small, yet booming for their specialized take on treats for both humans and pokémon.

The young clown smiled as he entered, but he couldn't keep it up much for long as a lot of people slowly backed away from him.

He found his reason for this when he looked right at a window and saw his reflection: the black eye was still there from the hitmonchan punch.

When Hardwin came to the counter, he spotted the cashier gawk at him for a second before poorly trying to hide the wince.

After he made his order, Hardwin was about to pay until…

"It's alright, Denise, I will pay for this young man. Just put it in with my usual order!"

Hardwin and his pokémon turned to look—except Zu because he was… you get it by now. There was an old man with white, swept back hair and white goatee who was rather tall and lanky, but he was wearing a pristine white suit and had golden framed glasses.

"Mr. Spencer! Y-Are you sure?" The cashier seemed nervous in front of the man.

"Come now! The boy has been having an obviously rough day! A little kind act won't hurt him, now will it?" The old man smiled.

Hardwin shook his head nervously. "Oh? I-I can't accept that, sir."

"Oh don't worry kid, I'm richer than everyone in this room put together! Ahahahaha!" Hardwin raised his brow as he looked around the room to see people rolling their eyes at the jolly old man.

The man stopped laughing and motioned the boy to walk with him outside after taking their orders. "The name's Drake Spencer. How did you get that black eye?" he went straight to the point.

Hardwin paused for a second. "I got hit by a stray attack." he told the man. That Kyle guy was a huge jerk, but Hardwin didn't really hate the guy. The last thing he needed was more people disliking him without him really knowing his situation.

"Ahh, so you're a trainer?" Mr. Spencer asked while the two turned towards a corner. "I just assumed since if you would get hit by a stray move in a battle if you were in it or watching it."

"I was in it yeah. My opponent… he meant well, but it was an accident." All of Hardwin's pokémon looked at their trainer weirdly.

"How long ago was that?"

"A day. I just got out of the plane all the way from Johto and I'd be lying if I wasn't jet lagged a little." he shrugged his shoulders. "I even wrapped an ice pack on it the whole flight here." Actually it was just a block of frozen water that Zig made but it should have done the same thing. Right?

Zu started flying about nervously. Then he started blurting out an alarm sound.

Mr. Spencer looked at the flying and poison type pokémon. "I think your zubat is alarming?"

"Long story, while he was injured, he hung out with the family chatot and eventually learned how to capture and mimic sounds he hears, but he only makes that alarm sound when there's…" Hadrwin and Mr. Spencer stopped in their tracks when they saw a large group of spiky haired people wearing leather jackets and other brutish looking accessories barred their path. "…trouble…"

"We'll lookie here bois! It's Mister Spencer, duh richest man in Ferrum!" One of them swaggered over towards them with a lead pipe hung on his shoulder. "I don't suppose you here for a little charity work, sir?"

Hardwin and his Pokémon tensed. There were a lot more people this time around and even with the skills he's practiced, he was sure that he couldn't win against all these trainers since he was only lucky the first time around. Not to mention, he would probably have to protect Mr. Spencer while this was happening.

But seriously, why was there another group of thugs in the same week no less? Hardwin was wondering if he was a magnet for A-holes or something.

Mr. Spencer didn't seem bothered at all and fixed his tie. "No, I don't always give out charities. But tell you what? Why don't you move out of the way…" his eyes narrowed dangerously towards the bullies. "or else."

The thugs seemed to hesitate when Mr. Spencer's jolly demeanor took a sudden 180 degree change. One of them was feeling enough courage to ask, "O-Or else what?"

Hardwin and his Pokémon also stared in anticipation as to what the kind old man was going to do. His glare only intensified, and some of the thugs and their pokémon were even shivering.

Then his tone suddenly shifted again as he stood up straight and waved a hand up. "Oh? Hello there, Officer Jenny!"

The thugs quickly turned around but didn't see anyone behind them.

It was then that Mr. Spencer suddenly turned on his heel, looked at Hardwin with a panic look on his face and whispered, "Run!" before bolting frantically in the opposite direction.

"W-What?!" The young man yelled before bolting after the man in the spur of the moment.

One of the thugs quickly turned back, "Hey! They're getting away!" and it didn't take long for them to race after the two.

"I thought you were going to do something!?" Hardwin yelled as he and the old man were running away from a group of terribly angry folks who fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book.

"All I have is diplomatic immunity, which is bumpkin in a street fight!" the man yelled. "But at least we're getting exercise!"

Hardwin stared hard before he took the lead and grabbed Mr. Spencer's arm to drag him around another corner. The thugs quickly chased after them, but when they turned, all they saw was an alleyway with some trash bins connecting to another street.

"Hurry up! This way!" Hardwin's voice came from the opposite and right end of the alleyway.

"After them!" The thugs cried out as they all quickly ran at the direction of the voice.

A few seconds passed before Hardwin and Mr. Spencer slowly walked out from behind the large trash bin.

Mr. Spencer smiled towards Hardwin's zubat. "That was lovely little trick you did there!"

"Zu isn't really strong in direct combats, but his skill of manipulating sounds thanks to his echolocation does come in handy besides helping out in entertainment."

" _No need to drop to your knees and praise me… but please do._ " Zu selected another phrase from a random sound he had collected over his life.

"Well that was one dandy adventure my young man! Huh. I never did get your name."

"It's Hardwin Wilburg, sir. But everyone calls me Arz for short."

"Hardwin Wilburg? Ahh! Your one of my new students invited to my school!" The old man pointed and smiled at the young boy.

At that sentence, Hardwin's eyes shot up. "W-Wait, your school? As in, Battlecraft Academy!?"

"Yep! Founder, owner, and headmaster of the school you're now coming to! Welcome to Ferrum Region, young man!" The old man stood with pride.

"W-Wow! Thank you so much for accepting me in the school!" The clown blurted out in appreciation.

Mr. Spencer gave out a hearty chuckle. "I thank you for that, Arzy! But you're not going to think that when you enter into my school!"

The young man raised his brow in confusion at the statement.

Mr Spencer laughed again and patted the boy's shoulder. "You see, Arzy, I get bored very easily. And even though I am a very rich man, I find pleasure in making my subordinate's lives far more interesting! And by that, I mean I mess with them and their daily lives!"

Hardwin's jaw dropped at the rather open statement from his future headmaster.

"Don't worry, I'm not some evil dictator guy, I just wanna have fun before the reaper tolls my bell and all. So when you get to my school, I'm going to make sure you have a hard, but fair time in my school!"

Hardwin's jaw fell further, eliciting a crack sound that was audible to everyone near him. He then managed to stutter out a word. "W-Why!?"

"Because I'm bored and watching others suffer for my amusement is cool!" The man laughed heartily again despite the horrified look on Hardwin and his Pokémon's face. "Also, you can't escape now. I basically own this town, and I know your face! _You can't leave here for the next four years! ~OOooooo!_ " He did his best impression of a spooky but silly voice with that last sentence.

Still, Hardwin was horrified none the less that his headmaster was basically a bored sadist with all the power in the world right now.

"Well, I'll definitely keep my out for you, young Arzy! You definitely made my favorites list!" He turned on his heel and started to walk away, but then stopped and pointed a finger up as if he remembered something. He walked back to Hardwin and opened up the goods he bought from the bakery, revealing a cream pie in his hands.

"I forgot! I was going to do this to my vice principal, but welcome to Helio City!"

Splat!

Mr. Spencer nonchalantly threw the pie right into Hardwin's face, surprising most of his pokémon except his forever passive magikarp.

The pie tray fell off, leaving a still stupefied and now cherry covered boy who was understandably questioning if this was real life or if it was a fantasy.

"I hope to see you soon, Arzy! I see great things in your future! Bye!"

Hardwin just continued to remain frozen. Zig and Zu shared a look at each other before sniffing and with very little regard for their trainer, started licking the crème of his face. What? They were still hungry!

The young clown finally sighed. "… I should have let that guy get mugged by thugs."

Unbeknownst to the boy who was telling his partners to stop licking him while he made his way to the nearest public restroom, there was a figure high above them with binoculars following Mr. Spencer.

The figure placed a hand on their ear and waited for a mechanical beep. "I've spotted the target: he is now alone without the young trainer following around. Proceed with mission?"

"Negative. Police reports are coming in fast because of those fools we paid. Retreat for now and remain undercover, Zealot."

"Roger, Dragoon. Zealot, signing off." The figure then looked over to the boy who had his face decorated with pie and shook their head. "Huh. And people would think we're the bad guys."

They then disappeared into the shadow of the building.

* * *

Hardwin would have been impressed at how grand and large Battlecraft Academy was. He would have been impressed with the lovely architecture, the white clean paths, the artistic styled gardens with exotic plants, the digital screens, and the large battle fields near the courtyards… if he was not mentally drained at the fact that his headmaster was about to make his life harder on him than he ever dreamed.

So instead, he went straight towards the front desk and directly towards his new dorm as soon as he was finished not-listening to the desk person explain all the formalities before the new school year's opening ceremony.

He opened the keys to his new, dorm where it looked like his roommate hadn't arrived yet. Good, he needed some time to sulk.

Hardwin face flopped into his side of the bed and sighed greatly. "Dear god, what did I get myself into?"

"~ _Cause you had a bad day, you're taking one down. You sing a sad song just to turn it around.~_ "

"Zu, not helping." Hardwin groaned into his pillow. "Can this day get any worse?!"

SNAP!

"… Zu, open your mouth, and I will staple it shut for the rest of the day." In Hardwin's defense, he wasn't expecting his own bed to be booby trapped with a net now trapping him and his pokémon, except Magi who was on a desk staring at his friends.

Yes, somehow, someway, there was now a net that lifted and trapped Hardwin, Zu, and Zig up to the ceiling of their dorm.

Suddenly, a green haired girl rolled out of the other bed and exclaimed out in glee, "Yes! I finally caught Vincent Brooks! And now… you're not Vincent Brooks…"

His captor looked to be a girl around his age with long green hair and yellow colored irises. She was a little shorter than Hardwin's full height and she was currently wearing long black pantyhose, a short white skirt, a blue vest and a white long-sleeved collared shirt for women underneath. On her feet were short, specialized platform sneakers. She was somewhat stylish, but that wasn't important right now.

The blue haired boy stared incredulously at his captor. "Hey! Why are you looking sad about that when you should be horrified you freaking tried to net a human being!?"

The girl rolled her eyes. "I'm not just capturing any, human being! I'm talking about THE Vincent Joy Brooks!"

"Look, I'm going to assume that this Vincent guy is good and all considering you broke into my room and set up a trap for him, but seriously? Get me out from here!"

"It's not my fault! I thought the headmaster himself said that Vincent was assigned this room!"

Hardwin's mind did a literal record scratch. "I'm sorry. Did you just say the headmaster?"

Now his captor looked confused. "Uhh yeah? I met with Headmaster Spencer today and… are you… alright?" She paused as he saw his right eye lid twitching upward at the mention of the name.

"That's it! I'm not waiting anymore; Zig, Zu? Cut the rope!" Soon, his two Pokémon nibbled through the rope and the boy landed on his feet.

"Okay, look I'm sorry for nabbing you." The girl started.

"Woman, you were hiding under a bed for who knows how long just to capture a human being! You should be apologizing to all decent human beings for your behavior!"

"Well excuse you! My name is Anita Barée, official president of the Vincent Joy Brooks Fan Club!"

"Lady, I could care less about who you are. Now get out of here before I press charges for breaking and entering!" Hardwin pointed at the door.

"I did not break in! Headmaster Spencer gave me a spare key right here—hey!" The girl cried out as Hardwin snatched right from her hand the moment she showed it. The girl made a step forward to try and get it back, but Hardwin placed a hand in front of her face to stop her.

"Are you even aware of how insane you sound right now? Get out!"

Anita stomped her foot and huffed. "I am not leaving until I see who I came for! If he's not here yet, you must be his roommate!"

Hardwin may have been from the circus, but what the heck were with all these crazy people he was currently meeting!? However, the circus has prepared the boy enough to see that the girl in front of him had absolutely no control over her lust. He would have tried to help her in any way or form, but he wasn't a saint. His patience was already dried up because of Mr. Spencer, and the fact he was still jet lagged wasn't helping his poor condition.

The blue haired boy walked over towards the window in his room. He opened it and pointed over. "Hey, I think I see him over there."

The girl quickly sped right next to the boy and looked out the two story window. "Where!? AAIIIIEE!?"

Oh no. Somehow, Hardwin must have accidentally pushed Anita out of the window. Such a tragedy that does happen. Must have been the wind.

Anita fell into some stylized hedges that broke her fall before looking back up in a way the word livid couldn't capture. "You crazy son of a—" Hardwin shut the window close.

"Zu, you heard her voice and heartbeat right? Warn me whenever she comes close from now on with her name and voice." It was a good thing he saw that those bushes before he came up in this room otherwise he would have resorted to knocking her out cold and dragging her out.

" _Aye aye, captain!_ " The blind bat flapped in joy as he played out another voice he heard.

"I feel like that's going to bite me in the butt later on, but right now I can't really think straight." Hardwin fell again on the bed he choose and just felt a horrible headache come over him.

The door opened again, forcing Hardwin to look over at Zu who was still flapping around normally without any sign that it was the person he just pushed out of a window.

There was a teen that was in a heavily dressed coat with sunglasses and a beanie. He was slightly taller than Hardwin, but other than that, it was hard to see any other noticeable features with how he was hiding himself.

The young clown blinked and put two and two together at his future roommate. "Are you Vincent Joy Brooks?"

Even though he was wearing sunglasses, the clown could tell the guy was raising his brow as he took of his beanie and sunglasses. He had a rather handsome face with his straight black hair. He had one of his bangs covering his left eye which was icy blue like the right one. Honestly, he could see why that Anita girl seemed to like him; he was handsome looking in a pretty boy kind of way.

"How the heck did you know that?" From behind him, a greninja walked into the room.

Hardwin pointed to the floor where the obvious sight of a cut up net was left for Zig to start playing with. "Your number one fan just rigged my bed."

"Oh god what? They found out where I live already?! I just found out where I just got assigned!" The boy complained and then sighed. "I am sorry, but I'm going to have to ask for a new room. My fans are ruthless!"

Hardwin blinked as he took a closer look at the man's face. "Ah! Now I remember you! You were that one guy who participated in several leagues. That was why your name sounded so familiar!"

"Yeah. That's me." The guy spoke up and raised his brow. "But what exactly happened here?"

"Well she created a net designed to snatch you off the bed, but for some reason, she neglected to factor in Pokémon chewing through."

The other young adult seemed horrified at the thought and then pointed right to Hardwin. "Did she punch you in the face? Because that looks nasty."

Hardwin pointed towards his black eye. "Oh this? I got it recently before I came here. It was an accident."

"Sorry. I didn't really know they'd be that obsessed."

"Well, I kind of have to admit, I've only seen a few of your battles when you were in league tournaments. I don't exactly know why you're famous though."

"Hmm? Oh well, I don't just do league battles, I participate in the Grand Festivals as well."

Hardwin paused for a second. "Wait, you also do contests?"

"Yeah. I participate in them as well as battling."

The clown boy seemed impressed at that. "I didn't know someone could be both a trainer and a coordinator."

"Oh it's a lot harder, but I can totally do it. Not to mention the fact there are other people who also double as both trainers and coordinators." Vincent proudly said before he realized something. "By the way, I never got your name."

"It's Hardwin Wilburg, but everyone I know calls me Arz for short." He placed his hand out and Vincent was well mannered enough to shake it back.

"I do have a question for you though, before you leave." Hardwin asked. Now that he recalled more about this man's battles, there was something that always seemed to confuse him whenever he would watch this guy on television.

"What is it?"

"What was that odd thing you and your greninja did in the Hoenn League?"

Vincent and his partner looked at each other. "Oh that? According to Professor Sycamore, he calls it the Bond Phenomenon where a Pokémon and their trainer are so synchronized that it allows the Pokémon to take on a new, more powerful form in battle just like mega evolution."

Instead of looking satisfied, Hardwin and his Pokémon looked more confused. "Mega evolution? What's mega evolution?"

It was Vincent and his pokémon's turn to look shocked towards Hardwin. "Whoawhoawhoawhoa! You _don't_ know what Mega Evolution is?"

Hardwin glanced to his left and his right a little nervously at the question. "Uh yeah? What is it some kind of special evolution or something?"

Vincent stared at Arz in disbelief before he threw away his coat and showed Hardwin a bracelet with a beautiful stone etched into it. "This is a Mega Bracelet, which combined with a Key Stone and a Mega Stone of a specialized pokémon, allows certain pokémon to evolve past their highest form for a fair duration during a fight. All high level trainers have this—heck! Everyone in this school at least knows about it if they don't have it themselves! How did you win any badges if you didn't come across them?!"

Hardwin looked away bashfully for a small while. "I… I didn't win any?"

Huh, so that was what a greninja looked like if he dropped his jaw. You could barely see it with his tongue covering it.

"What do you mean you didn't win any? Battlecraft Academy recruits high level trainers and other professions into this school! The lowest requirements to apply here without a scout are at least eight badges, or five ribbons, or whatever the other classes are! How did you get in!?"

"Okay, I admit, I got lucky…" he then froze as he recalled his meeting with two other people before Vincent and rethought that last word. "I mean, in an interesting turn of events, I was able to attract the attention of a scout while battling and that's how I got here."

"Wow really? You impressed a scout with one battle? Which Pokémon did you use?"

"Zig over there." Said normal type was chewing on the rope like a toy before his partner pointed to him.

"A… zigzagoon? You impressed a scout by battling with a zigzagoon?"

"You sound surprised."

"Well I—sorry. Sorry, it's just really hard to wrap around the idea that you, a person who doesn't even have a single badge, got invited to this academy by catching the attention of a scout in a battle with a zigzagoon—one of the most common and looked down on pokémon from Hoenn. Excuse me if it's a little hard to believe that."

Hardwin blushed. "W-When you put it like that… it does sound like something straight out of a movie…"

"Oh no no! I don't mean to put you down, I-I'm actually impressed! You must be one heck of a trainer to get their attention and get in this school!"

"Umm, I came here to learn how to be a trainer actually." Hardwin rubbed the back of his head sheepishly at the praise coming from a high level trainer.

"You came to a high level school to learn how to be a trainer? What were you before this?"

"A clown." he managed to answer quickly. "I lived in a circus my whole life, so besides practicing cool ideas for battling, I've been helping around the family business."

"Y-You're serious right now? You're from a flipping circus of all places? Like clowns and bearded ladies and all that?"

"I'm the son of a bearded lady, thank you very much." Hardwin gave out a deadpan expression at that.

"Holy crud, you're serious. Well, I think I might take back changing rooms if I have someone as impossible as you as a roommate."

"You make it sound like I'm some kind of magnet for the unlikely."

While it was unlikely, the window was smashed down in both Vincent and Hardwin's room and the two young adults looked over to see a ticked off Anita and her staraptor.

"Alright you blue haired, green eyed psycho! No one pushes me off a window—OHMYGOD! It's Victor Brooks! EEEEE!" The girl screamed in excitement as Zu fell into Hardwin's bed from the high pitched scream.

"Zig!" The boy managed to yell to his normal type with his hands clamped to his head as the Normal type quickly fired a torrent of water that knocked the yelling girl back out the window she busted through and forced her flying type to panic and fly after her.

"You know, I think we should both change rooms." Hardwin looked over to Vincent.

"You're a mind reader dude. Let's hurry before she comes back; I know that chick. She has a fan club—or what I call a mob from hell—on speed dial!"

"Right, before I do that…" Hardwin picked up Magi and looked out the window. "Really sorry about how I treated you! I had a bad day, and I hope we meet again on better terms!" Without waiting for her response or her recovery from landing on the tree again, Hardwin left right after Vincent and his pokémon did.

"And weren't you supposed to be keeping an ear out for her?" The young entertainer looked towards his zubat.

" **I** _was_ **distracted!** " The bat creature replied back with several spliced up voices.

Vincent was once more interested at how Zu was able to talk right then and so began another conversation between the acclaimed trainer and the circus clown.

* * *

"Whoaaaaa…" Hardwin looked around the empty battle field stadium. It felt like a high school gymnasium with simple bleachers on the side and a large, floored court in the middle. "This is just one of their battle fields? And we students can just borrow it like that?"

"Didn't you know?" Vincent raised his brow. "Battlecraft Academy is so big that it actually makes up half of Helio City. The founder, Mr. Drake Spencer is considered one of the richest men in the world, not just in the Ferrum Region. Even the second richest person in Ferrum is like middle class when compared to him."

"H-He's that rich?" Hardwin could feel his stomach getting sick at the thought of that jerk being that influential.

"Yeah, but a lot of people say he's kind of eccentric." Hardwin fought the urge to roll his eyes at that. "But just like most high level academies, people who come out of Battlecraft are top tier of their kind. Yet the difference with Battlecraft, which I researched before coming here, was the fact that the school is so rich, you barely have to pay for things here."

"I was wondering why I was given a full scholarship in coming here." The young clown mused to himself before realizing something. "But why did you invite me here anyway?"

"You said it yourself: you have no idea what Mega Evolution is. I think it's best to show you in an exhibition match."

"Oh a battle? O-Okay." To say Hardwin was nervous would have been an understatement. He had watched a few of Vincent's battle before and he had some really tough looking Pokémon with him. The young entertainer loved his Pokémon but it wasn't hard to see how outclassed he was.

"Go, Garchomp!" Hardwin looked in frozen shock as a large and powerful looking dragon and ground type entered ground with a mighty roar.

"Uhh, does anyone want to go in and battle," 'get slaughtered' was a far more appropriate to say than 'battle'. "that guy?"

Zig stared in bewilderment and while Zu didn't have eyes, you could tell they had this 'are you bloody kidding us?!' look on them.

And Magi… oh Magi… why are you playing dead in your fish bowl?

"Uhhh, Zu! You can go in!" Hardwin quickly pointed to his flying type who actually stopped flapping his wings for a second at the declaration.

Zu floated in, playing a grim tune that signified his doom as he flew into the field hesitantly. Garchomp raised his brow and growled as he looked back to Vincent and Greninja standing a few feet behind his trainer.

"Okay, I admit, it's nothing like the battles you've had before. But… we're more just showing him how things work?" Vincent tried to reason with his dragon type.

Garchomp growled a few times at his trainer. Hardwin didn't understand and looked to Zig. Even though he didn't understand Garchomp, Hardwin could just know what Zig was translating to him. Garchomp was basically saying that this was a waste of his time and power… which was true for all parties involved.

"L-Look, I'll promise I'll give you a better battle later, just… just mega evolve." Vincent tried to say as he lifted his Mega Bracelet into the air. A flash of light surrounded Garchomp and out of the light show, somehow, Garchomp looked even more threatening and scarier than he did a few seconds ago. He was larger, looked sleeker, and had sharper claws than before.

The carnival folks just gaped. Garchomp seemed uninterested and ran up to the zubat while he was still distracted and swatted the pokémon into the ground with his claws, not even using a regular move.

"Oh crap, Zu!" The circus boy ran to his friend who was already out cold.

Garchomp scoffed and let go of the Mega Evolution.

"I am so sorry, Arz!" Vincent said as he ran up to see if the zubat was alright. "I-I was going to let you make the first move, but it looks like Garchomp here didn't want to wait." He glared at his dragon type, only for the evolved Pokémon to scoff.

"N-No, it's fine. He was probably right to end it anyway. We were totally out classed from the very start." That was putting it kindly. Everyone could tell Garchomp held back greatly even with that swat. It wasn't from the start, even before the battle was already won.

"L-Look I'll make it up to you. I swear! We should bring Zu to one of the Pokémon Centers in school."

"Yeah… we should…" Hardwin scooped up his friend and left the battlefield. It wasn't just the poison type that was hurt from the battle.

* * *

Later that night, Hardwin was for once all alone in a random and seemingly empty courtyard sitting on a bench. It was windy, but he didn't really care about that.

Vincent was really nice and felt totally bad about his Garchomp's attitude, but Hardwin had no hard feelings about it at all. Still, he was somewhat surprised that Nurse Joy was actually his auntie… which explained why his middle name was Joy… huh…

Anyway, Vincent had to go call his mom back in Sinnoh and go out for dinner, so he and Hardwin separated and promised to meet up again in their dorm.

But Hardwin's mind kept looking back to how Vincent's Garchomp humiliated Zu in one hit, not even wasting a move on him.

 _You want to be a guy that makes other Pokémon battle each other for entertainment? You do realize that you're shifting the humiliation you're placing on yourself into pain for Zigs and the others?_

Hardwin placed his hands on his head and covered his face. "Aaaahhhhhh! Grandpa was right, what the heck was I thinking when I accepted this?! … I should have just stayed in the carnival."

"Things that should have been and things that are happening right now are two very different things."

The young boy opened his eyes and looked to the empty spot beside him. However, as soon as he did, his eyes widened fast and he stood up as he pointed to Mr. Spencer. "Y-You!"

"Heyo, Arzy! How's your first unofficial day of school?" It was like the man didn't throw pie into the boy's face that morning.

"I-I… I don't want to be here anymore." The young man slumped in his stance as he exhaled in defeat when he said that.

Mr. Spencer actually looked surprise. "Why is that?"

"Why!? Are you really asking me that!? First, you throw a pie at my face after me helping you, next you obviously send some crazy girl that set my own bed as a booby trap! And if that wasn't bad enough, I just found out that I was too stupid to realize that the requirements for entering this school was at least eight badges! I haven't even gone out of my way to get even one! And now, I just found out that I'm horribly outclassed… and my best friends will just get hurt because of my incompetence and selfishness…"

Mr. Spencer's face softened after the hearing how bad the young man's day was. "Wow. It's a good thing I got you this after all."

Hardwin raised his brow as the headmaster pulled out a small box with a ribbon tied neatly around it. "I may act like a jerk, but that's because I am proud of who I am. I like to mess with people because I think who they really are comes out when something unexpected happens. If people don't like me, I can understand why they won't like me: because of my actions. But I'd rather have them hate me because I wronged them rather because they don't know me."

The Headmaster stood up and gave Hardwin the box. "I had fun teasing you, but I also wanted to thank you for helping a complete stranger from a couple of muggers."

He was curious about what as in the box. At one hand it could be another trick, but the headmaster seemed sincere about it. Hardwin opened the box and found a light blue wrist band that looked similar to Vincent's mega bracelet except that it had this indentation that looked to fit a small crystal like object.

"I-Is this a mega bracelet?"

"No. I saw your Pokémon, and mega items don't suit you. This is a Z-Ring."

Hardwin tilted his head. "A Z-Ring? What's that?"

"It's… something that I think will help you in the long run." The man gave a kind smile. "However, as it is right now? It's a lot like you: incomplete, but when finished? Oh you can bet the stars themselves you'll be something worth seeing."

Hardwin looked at the Z ring despondently. "I-I can't take this gift. I'm not good enough—not only that, I was selfish in coming here in the first place. This was all a big mistake."

Mr. Spencer's gentle laughter caught Hardwin's attention. He usually loathed it when people laughed at him even though it was part of his job, but this time? It felt like he was laughing at something else.

"Kid, we're human. Making mistakes is a part of your life. Do you think I got this rich by being handsome and perfect? … Look, what is your dream?"

"I-I just want people to be excited around and with me rather than just laugh at me at my own expense… it sounds really naïve now that I say out loud again…"

"Huh? Really? Wow that is simple…. But that is a dream none the less worth chasing."

"It's a selfish one. I didn't really consider my own friend's dreams before I dragged them into my own. Now they're getting hurt because of it."

Mr. Spencer looked at something over Hardwin's shoulder. "They look fine to me."

The young clown looked behind him and looked surprised to see Zig, Zu, and Magi being carried by Zig coming excitedly to him.

"G-Guys? I thought I left you at the Pokémon Center!"

"It seems like they are excited to see you." Mr. Spencer commented as the boy went to his pokémon.

"What are you guys doing here?"

" _This_ **is** _the_ **part where you** _start the training montage!_ " Zu spoke in his own unique way.

However, that confused Hardwin. "T-Training? Why?"

"Zig za goon goon goo goon!" Hardwin understood that his friend basically said, "How can we get tougher if we don't train?"

"You guys… want to keep training? But… you'll just get hurt if we just continue this." Hardwin spoke out. "I don't want you guys to gut hurt because I was selfish…"

Zu's immediate response to that was to elicit a sound of a buzzer going off on a wrong answer in a quiz show.

" _Listen here, sonny!_ **We** _were_ always looked _down on!_ **We want to be better, we really do!** _So what if there's danger ahead?_ **We** say, "Full Speed ahead! And fetch **us** that horizon!"

Mr. Spencer walked beside Hardwin. "It looks like your pokémon are just a selfish as you," he smiled. "It's your choice if you want to leave or not, but if I may give my opinion? I wasn't born with all this money, I worked super hard till my hands bled almost every day of my childhood before I got my first full course meal. A lot of people dislike suffering, but… I do believe it's an essential part to understand others more."

The young clown looked back at the Z-Ring and saw his reflection. His reflection was frowning until he realized something. He wanted to be happy with others, and well… his pokémon were happy when he was happy.

Sure, bad things did await them, but wasn't things worthwhile in life earned through pain? They were also willing to be better, and so…

"Thanks, guys. You really are the best." Hardwin then turned to Mr. Spencer. "Thanks for the gift Mr. Spencer."

"Don't thank me yet. By itself, the Z-Ring is nothing more than a fashion bracelet. It won't do anything as of right now. However, survive the initiation exam the day after tomorrow and I can give you the first step."

Hardwin, now determined, griped the Z-Ring. "I will… and thank you… for talking to me."

"Don't thank me yet, boy, I don't do things without reason. Your personal test is going to be much harder than everyone else's."

"I-It is?"

"That's right.~" he laughed as he started walking away. However, he raised a hand lazily out and waved it around. "Train hard, dream harder… but never forget your roots kid."

Hardwin deeply inhaled and placed the Z-Ring on. "Come on guys, we're going back to Vincent. And this time? We're not freezing in shock." Even in the night, there was a shine that reflected off the Z-Ring.

Hardwin's friends cheered. Sure they were underdogs, and they were weak and at a low point…

But didn't that just mean they could only go up from then?

* * *

A/N: Oi vey this was a lot longer than I thought it would be. So let me welcome the first OC submitted by stimga13, Vincent Joy Brooks! I had a little trouble trying to introduce his character, but I hope I did him justice. If not, there are more opportunities for how he's supposed to be written as.

Now, only one chapter in and I introduced only one character so far, sorry about that. The reason why I choose to do so was to make sure the story flowed a little easier than instead of introducing so many characters in one go. I hope you guys can be patient with what I've written because I don't just want to cram characters in for the sake of just introducing them.

Also, I looked over my notes, and it looks like I didn't get enough characters even though I was able to fill my first quota. I'm allowing five more participants to come in and submit their Ocs if they want to.

Thanks for reading the story!


	3. Ch 3: Defiance Against The Odds

"Listen… Vi… Victor?" Hardwin supposed having a celebrity for a friend had its downside. Having to remember all these new alias the guy had to keep making in order for others not to recognize him was rather annoying. "Why not just be yourself? I'm sure people are mature enough to be chill around a famous trainer like you."

"… You _do_ remember one of my fans trapping you in a net after staking out in our original room… right?"

"W-Wasn't that just the one?"

Vincent pushed his glasses down to reveal his gray colored eyes due to his contact lens. "Hardwin, Hardwin, Hardwin… one day when you're smarter, you'll understand the world better." He shook his head before he walked ahead in a faster pace.

The young clown just stared in bafflement as his roommate left ahead. "… He did mean older, not smarter, right? … Right?"

Zig blinked at his trainer then shrugged.

Hardwin lived in a circus so this weird stuff should be normal to him, but as the boy was starting to find out, weirdness was some kind of absolute law or something in this school.

Regardless, the two young men were on their way to grand stadium A-1 where all of the first years were meant to gather for the first announcement of the school. The stadium itself was as large as those giant stadiums of football fields with like ten to thirty story high bleachers.

Everyone looked at the giant battlefield in the center where a stage was set up and Headmaster Spencer along with some other faculty members were standing in wait.

When everyone was done, Mr. Spencer spoke on the mike. "Hello everyone! I thank you all for accepting your invitation to Battlecraft Academy! There are a lot of processes to go through since there are around five hundred plus applicants here. However, here to remind everyone of the basics is our very own Battlecraft Academy Student Council!" He threw his hand out as the lights around the stadium dimmed down greatly and smoke started to filter into the battle field.

A rather catchy theme music started playing as five figures jumped out of the smoke and landed dramatically in the stage in multicolored uniforms.

A green spotlight shined down on a green costumed, masked man as he stepped forward and posed dramatically. "Battlecraft Moral Representative!"

Then a yellow spotlight fell on a yellow young woman who also did another childishly heroic pose before shouting out. "Battlecraft Treasurer!"

"Battlecraft Secretary!" A deep male voice cried out as he posed again when a blue spot light fell on him.

"Battlecraft Vice President!" The voice of the black costumed young man sounded like a murderer trying his best not to kill someone who ticked him off.

"B-Battlecraft Student Body President!" The last red light shown down on a female wearing a skin tight body suit.

"AND TOGETHER WE ARE… STUDENT BODY COUNCIL!" All five of them shouted as they posed again as a team this time with multicolored explosions in the background.

…

…

The silence that followed was so deafening, you could probably hear someone blinking from the opposite side of the stadium.

However, the headmaster of all people started clapping and whooping wildly at the performance.

Well that explains everything—Hardwin thought to himself while he pieced together how the headmaster probably made his student council members dress up like that.

The red—the student council president walked up to the mike. "A-Attention! Ci-Citize… I can't do this!" She shrieked as she crumpled into a ball with her hands covering her face helmet.

"Arlet!" The yellow costumed girl removed her mask, revealing a dark tan skinned girl with dark curly hair trying to ease the girl in red. "Oh don't worry girl, it'll be alright."

"Oh come on! Those aren't the lineEEEKS!?" Mr. Spencer was talked down by his fellow faculty members, causing all students to sweat drop at the tussle in front of this.

"Oh enough of this." The Vice President removed his mask, revealing a handsome man with black messy hair and fierce brown eyes. Hardwin noticed some girls staring at the man as his face was shown in the mega screen up above. "Freshmen, you will be judged by ranking on battles and grades. You will receive a message on your phone telling you which stadium to enter and from there personnel will guide you to your evaluation matches that will overall determine your rank among your year. Got it? Now beat it."

He walked away from the mike and took out a Poké Ball and brought out a claydol. His eyes glowed and teleported all of the Student council away.

Another man with a rather annoyed look on his face walked up to the mike. He looked as old as Mr. Spencer, but he looked like a man who had lived his entire life following an idiot.

"As Mr. Balthazar so eloquently put, please head to your respective stadiums which should be on your phones. Due to the nature of how our… headmaster… decided to try and explain the details, you will have to ask the attendants and older students stationed at each of your assigned locations for further details."

"Bbbrreckkk! There was supposed to be a battle sequence between the student council and a man wearing a crawdaunt costume!" The headmaster managed to scream out of gag before the others put it back on and started carrying him away.

Vincent and Hardwin just stared at the … unique… event that transpired in front of them. The raven haired boy seemed shocked, while Hardwin just rolled his eyes.

"Well that was something." The celebrity managed to gasp out before there was a beeping in his pockets. It seemed like the message came out and he glanced over to his phone. "I've got Stadium T-9. What do you—whoa! That is one old phone you've got!"

Hardwin's phone was one of those old, gray flip phones with low quality cameras on them. The boy from the circus blinked as he looked at the phone where the texts were obviously pixilated. "Well yeah? It was pretty cheap, so my dad bought it for me. Why?"

"Uhh, nevermind. So did you actually receive a message?"

"Yeah. I got… Stadium L-2, so we're in different places this time."

Vincent and Hardwin exchanged contacts before they went their separate ways.

* * *

Hardwin was checking a map as he and his partners were walking towards their destination. In the back of his head, he was worried. Mr. Sepncer said specifically that his personal test would be harder than everyone else's.

"Zig zig zaza." Hardwin realized that Zig was right, he was sighing again. He really should stop doing that.

Zu started giving out another alarm. Hardwin was surprised to find out his Pokémon trying to warn him about something until a voice rang out that seemed aimed towards him.

"There he is!" When he turned around, he saw that one crazed fan girl, Anita, leading a mob of rather focused looking females.

"Anita?"

The green haired girl seemed to have a really evil smile on her face. "That bastard right there is Vincent Brook's roommate! Get him, and we get closer to Vincent!"

Hardwin had never been to war, but he was definitely not expecting the female trainers to suddenly give out a war cry as they all charged for him. The young circus clown yelled out in panic as he, Zu, and Zig ran for dear life.

"Okay, now I'm starting to see why Vincent warned me about his fanbase!" The boy ran as fast as he could from the screaming girls.

"Hey you!" Hardwin glanced over to see someone motioning him around the corner. The circus boy didn't hesitate as he ran towards the corner. When the mob of girls went after him, they had found out he had disappeared.

"Where did he go?" "He must have gone that way!" The girls screamed before they ran in a random direction.

"It's only my second day here, and I got chased again?!" Up above, Hardwin was hanging on to a floating magnezone that had lifted him up in the air.

"You were chased just yesterday?" A male voice came from on top of the magnezone.

"Yesterday was a group of thugs trying to mug me, but yeah. I was chased." The steel and electric type levitated down for the boy to hope off without much harm. Hardwin looked up to see the other student jump down as well. "Thanks again for helping me out there."

"Appreciated, but I do admit you had piqued my interest when some random person seemed to be pursued by a group of women." The intellectual speaking, now that Hardwin got a closer look, was around the same size as him, if not just a bit taller. He was wearing glasses that looked a lot more high-tech than regular glasses. Despite his glasses and speech, he had this brown pompadour where his sides were clipped short and the left was longer on top and in the front. He also had a these hard-to-miss front teeth even though his mouth was closed. He was also in dress pants, casual shoes, and a button-up shirt with a light sweater over top

Hardwin sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "I may have ticked off their leader."

The pompadour teen tilted his head. "Hmm? Is that why you have a faint black eye?"

"What? No. This one is from an accidental move hitting me in the face," Hardwin best decided to change the subject since he didn't want to recall that memory again. "My name is Hardwin Wilburg, or Arz for short. The normal type you see on my shoulder is Zig and the blind bat over there is Zu. Thanks again for the assist."

"I'm Roman Nel Spring and the magnezone is one of my partners, Auto." Amazingly something was seen moving in Roman's hair and a small yellow spider popped up. "Oh right and this here joltik is Jojo."

" _There's a_ **BUG** _in his_ **hair!** " Zu spliced out another sentence from other voices. This caused the Roman and his partners to stare at the zubat with shock.

"Your zubat… can talk?"

"Well yeah." Hardwin then went into giving a brief rundown of how Zu could do that again.

"That is fascinating; I wasn't aware that zubats could learn to replicate speech like some chatots do! To think they could be trained as well!" He spoke with focused amusement. Jojo, the joltik tapped his head. "Ahh right. We wouldn't want to be late for our initiation."

"What arena are you in?" Hardwin interjected.

"L-2. You?"

"The same. If you want, I can tell you more about how Zu learned how to do that."

Roman smiled and reached for inside his clothes where he brought out a pen and a notebook. "That would be nice, thank you." With that, the two started walking with Arz telling Roman the story of how Zu learned to mimic sounds while he was healing with a chatot and their uncle who was a ventriloquist. Roman seemed very interested, as he was writing things down a lot of what Hardwin was telling him.

As they continued to the stadium, Hardwin found it a little weird that he was writing almost everything about him, like how he was born in Kanto but had his first birthday in Unova because of his family, and it was rather… well Roman asked a lot of questions and this was starting to feel more like an interview.

When the two got to the stadium, they were surprised. The Stadium was actually a building with students walking in and out of it. There was a sign that pointed freshmen to go pick up a specialized X-Transceiver before entering into the building along with a written pamphlet describing in full detail what should have been explained in the rally.

"There's a ranking system in this school?" Hardwin raised his brow as he looked up the piece of paper while he and Roman were walking towards the 3rd floor looking for battlefield 78.

"Yes, each year has their own ranking system. For example, the Student Council, while they were all wearing rather… 'unnecessary' clothes… they all just so happen to be the top five students among the fourth year students."

Hardwin blinked in surprise. The student council consisted of the strongest trainers? They sure didn't give that impression—except the vice president, he seemed competent enough.

"What is more interesting is the next page. According to this, the ones who will evaluate our rank will be the second year students. It's completely randomized, so there's a possibility of facing the first or last ranked among the second years."

Arz started to panic. Did this mean that the headmaster set him to battle the number one ranked among the second years!?

"Ah here we are." Roman caught Hardwin's attention as they came to the room.

The two came into the room, which was another battlefield much like the one Hardwin and Vincent were in—

"Flash Cannon!"

The two boys quickly shielded themselves as the flash of the attack blinded them and their Pokémon—except Zu. When the light died down, they looked to see there was a battle in progress.

On the battle field there were two Pokémon. The one that just fired the Flash Cannon was a blastoise and the opponent was a chikorita.

There were two female trainers battling it out. One of them was a rather short and plump girl around the height of 4'6. She had peach skin tone while she had brown hair tied in a French braid. She had purple colored irises that looked laser focus on this fight. However, what Hardwin noticed was that she was wearing a uniform of a black vest with a shield emblem crossed with swords, a long gray skirt and pants and a white polo underneath.

"That's obviously a second year." Hardwin heard Roman note out loud as he fixed his glasses. "There's a uniform you have to wear while in Battlecraft Academy, and we freshmen haven't received it yet. There's also the fact her emblem has two swords, meaning two years. With each sword on the crossing over the shield emblem that states how many years you've been in the school—like say, ours will have one sword crossed vertically over the shield."

"Oh wow, I didn't know that." Hardwin looked over towards the other side of the battle.

It was another female, and since she wasn't wearing a uniform, she was more than likely a first year as well. She was a little shorter than Hardwin and Roman and she was rather skinny and she looked as pale as a ghost sheet. She was wearing a white blouse with blue designer jeans with white socks and tennis shoes while wearing a pair of black hoop earrings. She had golden blonde hair that looked really well kept and her eyes had a much more vibrant green than Hardwin's eyes.

"Chika, Razor Leaf!" The pale girl cried out. The grass type shot out an impressive barrage of leaves towards her opponent.

However, the other shorter trainer called out Iron Defense and quickly the blastoise turned his shell towards the attack. The leaves pelted the shell, but it seemed like they were barely getting through the reinforced shell.

The trainer of the grass type called her Pokémon to continue her assault. While the attack still went on, blastoise continued to keep up Iron Defense.

"Hmm not a bad strategy." Hardwin looked over to Roman while it looked like his focus looked to be on the battle. "Keeping up the attack pins the blastoise from moving out. However, that water pokémon has obviously been raised well with how little it seems bothered being continuously hit by a super effective attack."

"So aren't they both in a stalemate then?" Hardwin asked as he looked into the field.

"No, the second year is going to win." The blue haired boy looked over to the pompadour boy as he pointed to the trainer in question. "She's been planning this."

"Now, Blastoise, use Gyro Ball!" The water type quickly retreated into his shell and rolled around the battlefield quickly. The chikorita had a hard time aiming her attacks as the Blastoise kept rolling along the side.

However, Hardwin had just noticed that while the shell was spinning, he was seeing another light inside the shell?

The rolling shell jumped into the air, and out popped Blastoise with a full charged Flash Cannon that launched itself through some of the Razor Leaves and blasted the grass type head on. The grass type cried out before she flew and crashed into the ground unconscious.

A large buzzer sound came out; making Hardwin look up to the four screens placed all four walls of this arena. A picture of both trainers were on the board, and the one with the loser faded out before it declared the second year, her name was placed as Genesis Beaumont, the winner.

The name of the girl who lost was Maria Faraday according to the screen. The two trainers recalled their Pokémon and shook hands while seemingly sharing some words with each other.

"You see, while Blastoise was powerful, it seemed like the grass type was a lot quicker on their feet than they realized, so they baited the situation where they tricked their opponent into the offensive and locked them in place for Blastoise to finally land a clean hit."

"Wow, I didn't see that."

"To be fair, watching outside a battle is different from in one. Something everyone needs work on." He fixed his glasses as his joltik cried out in joy.

There was a loud beeping noise coming from Roman's X-Transceiver. At the same time, the screens around the stadium started changing and it showed Roman's face on one side of the screen where Maria's face was.

"Will Roman Nel Spring please report to the battlefield and wait for your evaluator?" A mechanical voice came out of the room.

"Hmm, how fortuitous. It appears we've come just in time for my battle."

"Good luck."

"Thank you for that. I'll see you later then, Hardwin." Roman and his partners made their way towards the front desk while Hardwin and his partners went towards the bleachers. As he did, he noticed the battlefield… was healing itself? Whoa; that's pretty high tech to have a battlefield that can fix itself in just one room.

As the clown wandered down the side where all the freshmen were gathering since on the opposite side of the field, all of the sophomores were sitting down. As he picked a spot around the corner, he and his Pokémon noticed someone sit down with them.

"Oh hey, you're that trainer that fought recently. You did pretty great."

"O-Oh? I thank you for your compliment, though I am afraid I didn't meet the standards I wanted." Hardwin blinked for a second. Huh, her accent sounded posh. Neat, he hasn't heard that type of accent before. "My opponent was quite practiced at handling the battle even with the obvious experience gap. This school is rather exciting to have such a large array of expert trainers and such. It's no wonder the requirements for this school were top notch."

"Yeah, tell me about it. I got lucky and just attracted the attention of a scout." Hardwin looked over to the screen as Roman's opponent was chosen as soon as the pompadour teen stepped into the field.

Maria glanced over to Hardwin with shocked eyes. The clown seemed nervous, was he not supposed to say that? "You also won the attention of a scout in battle?"

Now it was Hardwin's turn to look surprised. "W-Wait? What? How many badges have you won?"

"I… regretfully have to admit I have never went on a journey before, so my collection is nonexistent." Strangely enough, Maria yawned and she seemed troubled after yawning for some reason and tried to fumble something in her pockets.

However, Hardwin didn't pay much attention to this as he excitedly smiled. "Wow! I finally meet someone like me! Oh right! My name is Hardwin Wil… are you… sleeping?" He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't dreaming and lo and behold, Maria was sleeping. Yes, sleeping as in her eyes were shut and her breathing was softer.

The young clown and his Pokémon just stared. However, because they were sitting down in the bleachers, Maria's body started to tilt and tip over. Hardwin panicked and instantly scooted over to her, making her fall to his shoulder.

"Zig? Zagazig?"

"What? I panicked alright! What was I supposed to do, just let her fall?"

"Goon. Zag zag."

"I so did not bore her to sleep… I think? I mean, just a while ago we just had a guy write an entire note page worth of us." Hardwin tried to then nudge Maria awake, but for some reason she wouldn't react.

Then Hardwin noticed that Maria was about to open up three Poké Balls with how her hand was laying on the bench.

The clown told Zig to open them and three Pokémon popped out beside them, one of them was the chikorita he saw earlier, looking already healed up, but there were also two other pokémon: a poochyena and a chansey.

It didn't take much for all three Pokémon to look at their trainer… then at Hardwin who was a complete stranger to them.

Hardwin paled as he saw the poochyena and chikorita glare daggers at him. But Zig and Zu went in front of them to try and explain and maybe protect their trainer. That last part was sorta there only because he was the guy that fed them.

Before anything could happen, the announcement came out into the room. "We apologize for the delay, there was a technical difficulty. Will second year student, Blake Noxic please come to the field? You will be Roman Spring's evaluator."

Hardwin, and pretty much all the freshmen, looked towards the sophomore side of the field where they all seemed to be murmuring and whispering to each other at the sound of the name.

The clown turned towards Zu. "Hey, can you catch one of their conversations?"

Zu paused for a second before opening his mouth before two voices came out from across the field.

"Blake Noxic? That newbie got paired with the number one ranked trainer among the sophomores?" Hardwin didn't need to hear anymore as he stared in disbelief at the field.

There was a person who pretty much strode onto the field, catching everyone's attention from the moment she appeared. She was almost six feet tall maybe just shy an inch and had a distinct mesomorphic figure, but she was the only sophomore not wearing a uniform. She wore a black jacket with a denim vest with a red shirt that had an imprint of a black arcanine. She had ripped black jeans with strange marks and she tightened her red fingerless gloves. Her hair style was wild enough considering it was shaven off on her left side, but her hair also had different colors. The side with hair was black with white streaks while her shaven side seemed to be dyed dark blue? Her electric blue eyes just seemed to be frozen in a constant glare.

Hardwin blinked as he seemingly spotted… scars? Where those scars he could see on the few places she showed skin around her neck? Not to mention on both of her wrists, she saw a mega bracelet just like Vincent's. But on her other wrist… it looked a lot like the Z-Ring that Hardwin had, but hers was black and there was a crystal on it unlike his which was empty. What did that crystal do?

"Trainers! Your evaluation will begin soon! This shall be a one versus one battle! Do your best on both sides! Ready? …"

Both trainers took out a Poké Ball in preparation.

The screens all put the trainer's names and their picture into each individual display terminal.

"Begin!"

"Go, Zipp!" "Go, Hades!" The two cried out as they both brought out a blitzle and decidueye wearing a black bandana respectively.

Roman made the first move, commanding his blitzle to use Flame Charge at the grass type. Hades the decidueye grabbed a feather from his wing and quickly turned into an arrow.

"Don't let it hit even your shadow!" The electric type flared with his flames, incinerating the arrow as it flew towards him. Zipp charged for the ghost type, only for Hades to jump into the air with little effort. While in the air, the archer Pokémon impressively was able to gather more of his feather arrows and fire them from on high at the electric type. However, Zipp—true to his name—zipped around the battlefield much faster than before thanks to flame charge's speed boost.

However, due to the fact the grass type from Alola was up in the sky, he kept firing a hail of arrows from above. Bliztle looked over towards Roman who nodded in silence. The electric type slid to a stop and faced the ghost type while standing his ground.

Hades seemed to pause while Blake just narrowed her eyes.

Suddenly, clouds started appearing over the ceiling and the arena started to rain indoors!

Hardwin quickly noticed both sides using their own ways or Pokémon to shield them from the rain. As the water started pouring on them, he looked over to Maria. "How are you still sleeping through this!?" Despite his cry, he carefully removed his jacket and just used it to cover them… then Zig and Zubat squeezed underneath his jacket… then Maria's poochyena and chikorita smudged in as well. Hadrwin just looked over to the chansey and just gave up and let everyone else sleep in his jacket while Maria was moved over to her chansey. This left Hardwin alone in the rain without a jacket.

Meanwhile in the battle, Roman cried out his next order. "Thunder!" The little electric type shot a powerful bolt of electricity towards the sky. Blake's eyes widened as she ordered her Pokémon to duck down and brace for impact. Thunder cracked from the clouds and struck Hades down from the sky with a boom. The bandana wearing Pokémon cackled with electricity as it tried to get up, but Roman was on the offensive and ordered another Thunder to strike down on grass and ghost type.

"Sucker Punch!" Despite how far away the opponent was, Hades sped right in front of the electric type and connected his fist to the side of his face. Blitzle flew through the rain and tried to correct himself mid air, only to slip due to the water on the ground.

"Tch! I neglected to factor the water slowing my movements." Roman whispered to himself before deciding he would just go all out. "Keep using Thunder, Zipp!"

Bolt after bolt of thunder crashed down on the Decidueye. Despite the Pokémon's best attempt to dodge, it was nigh impossible to avoid with the rain boosting the accuracy of each attack. The grass type tried to get in close again, but this time Roman and Zip were more than ready to ward the evolved pokémon away with a well placed Thunder to back them off.

Hardwin was miserable under the rain, but even with this poor condition he noticed Blake was smiling.

And her wrist with the Z-ring… was it glowing?

Blake threw her hand out, and the Z-Ring started to glow. Roman's eyes seemed to widen as he called out for Zip to use his strongest thunder. However, a burst of light came from Blake's Z-Ring and went into Hades, the decidueye.

"Huh? Did it just get even darker in the room?" Hardwin noticed as it was getting eerily darker in the room even with the rain clouds blocking most of the light.

The only source of light in the room was Zipp gathering energy for one giant Thunder strike. It flew off, like a cannon right for Decidueye who flew right towards it—then vanished as the attack made contact and seemingly hit empty air. Then one arrow pinned down on Zipp's shadow, freezing it in place and out from above, Decidueye pointed—the same motion that Blake as she spoke out an attack, "Sinister Arrow Raid!" —then all the arrows rained down on Zipp just like the rain itself.

The clouds instantly let up, and the screens declared Blake Noxic the winner. The two got recalled their pokémon, and met in the field.

Hardwin noticed Zu fly out from under his jacket before he opened his mouth, revealing he was listening to their conversation for them.

"That was a good match." Blake's voice, Hardwin assumed, came out. It was a lot more easy-going despite how tense she looked.

"I had learned a lot. Thank you." Roman said as they shook hands and left.

Hardwin was still thinking about the battle, especially what that thing she did with her Z-Ring. What was that exactly?

The screens pulled up more people. Hardwin looked over to the X-Transceiver he received and noticed that it still told him to wait in the arena.

After a bit, Roman came towards Hardwin and noticed that the clown was previously soaked. He looked over towards Maria, who was sleeping on her chansey with Hardwin's sweatshirt on top of her.

"Who is she, and why does she have your jacket? Are you two…?"

"I don't know why you jumped to that conclusion. But no. I just met her today and for some reason she just… fell asleep!" Hardwin easily dismissed as he looked back at Roman. "By the way, your really did well against your opponent."

"Unfortunately, I still lost though."

"Dude, Zu hear overheard the sophomores say she's the top ranked among the second years. Don't feel too bad."

"Oh she was top ranked? That explains why she never seemed to lose her cool. Hmm, and I doubt I even truly saw the full capabilities of what she had considering she had a Mega Bracelet along with a Z-Ring like you… why don't you have a Z-Crystal placed on it?" Without Hardwin's jacket, Roman saw the ring around Hardwin's wrist.

"Actually, I don't know what it does? This was just a recent gift. What is this?" Hardwin asked.

Roman explained what the Z-Ring did in that it had the ability to increase moves into powered up elemental versions of most attacks. Some, like the one he saw awhile ago, was actually based on specific moves by specific Pokémon."

It was then that the entire room's lights blinked in and out.

"Hmm? Where their technical difficulties a bigger problem than they thought?" Roman asked before the lights quickly came back on. "Ahh never mind. After the battle, I was told to go pick up my uniform in a different building. But seeing as you didn't have your battle yet, I can wait."

"Really? You don't have to do that." Right, his battle hadn't been called yet judging by how they get chosen in their X-transcivers.

"It's honestly fine. I would like to go over my notes, and I can do that better by watching other people battle." He said as he sat down on the opposite side. "By the way, did she stay asleep even through the rain?"

"I think so, yeah." Hardwin zoned out as the next trainers were called into the field.

"Hmm…" Roman stood back up and walked over towards Maria, the female trainer's Pokémon tensed as they looked at the newcomer, but Roman just seemed to look at her thoughtfully. "I think she is a narcoleptic."

That word caught Hardwin's attention. "You mean the sickness where you just fall asleep without control?"

"Exactly." It seems like she'll be asleep for a while. She must have forgotten her medicine or something. Poor girl."

Hardwin frowned at the thought of that, but then he recalled that Maria said she also was just like him, a person who impressed a scout without a single badge. Even though she seemed to have sickness, it was actually cool of her to be able to battle with such handicap. The clown respected her for that.

So with that figured out, they just watched battles pass by in their arena. Time went on, and between that time Hardwin could have sworn he felt shaking for some reason but shrugged it off when no one else seemed to notice.

Seconds passed.

Minutes went by.

Hours had come and gone, but Hardwin still wasn't called.

Strangely enough, after the last battle, the overseers in the room declared that today was done with evaluation and all students were free to spend the night as they wished.

Hardwin and Roman looked on with surprise. The young circus boy checked his X-Transceiver again only for it to say that his match was still pending. That didn't make a whole lot of sense until the young man recalled that headmaster Spencer declared that he would be having a very hard match up today. The young boy paled. Was this what he meant by that?

The young man went over to the attendants for help. When the young man had mentioned the headmaster, the attendants suddenly became a lot nicer to him—as if they pitied him or something. But they were sure that it only meant that the headmaster chose someone specifically for him, which did not help the boy calm down in the slightest.

It was then that someone entered into the room while everyone was living. He was a massive and muscular man with dark tanned skin, wild black hair, and he was wearing something that looked like a black and red karate gi. He wore fingerless red gloves, had a Battle AR around his left ear, and had this powerful aura with him even though he was giving a friendly smile.

"Which one of you is Hardwin Wilburg?" The kind, giant of a man asked out as he raised his hand.

The boy in question hesitantly raised his hand. "Uhh that's me."

"Well, I owe Drake a few favors, and he uses it to have me evaluate you." He folded his arms as he sized the boy up. "The name's Glenn Stark and I'll be your evaluator today. A pleasure to meet you."

"Glenn Stark!?" The usually calm and calculated Roman was uncharacteristically shouting out in shock with his eyes wide open. "As in, the former Ferrum League Champion!? That same one!?"

Oh, he was a former champi—someone tell a dialga to stop time right this instant!

"Yo—ya-wha-bu-famik… brrugggh narrrgghh?" It seemed like both words and thought have left Hardwin in his time of need as he blathered towards the towering man.

Glenn gave a hearty chuckle, which was more like booming laughter to the two freshmen after hearing that. "I don't go by champion anymore. I was beaten fair and square. Right now, I'm just a guy that loves to train his pokémon, and Drake asked me to see how you fair."

"Muuuggaaa?"

"I'll apologize accordingly." Roman dispassionately stated as he slapped the back of Hardwin's head.

"Ow. That hurt!"

"You still seemed in shock, so I hypothesized trauma would snap you out of it."

"Thanks, but did you really have to do it so hard!?"

"Sorry. I'll find a gentler way to do that next time."

Glenn smiled at how friendly the two young men seemed to be. "Well, when you're ready to face me, stand in the opposite side of the battlefield."

When he left, Roman, with expert subtlety and compassion, said, "You stand no chance of winning."

"You know, I appreciated that sentence better when it was just in my mind and not in your voice." The blue haired boy gave a deadpan expression.

"Sorry, but you have to admit that the odds are stacked unfairly against you."

Roman probably wasn't the best at trying to cheer up others, but was Hardwin, for the faintest of seconds, smirking?

"Tell me about it." Hardwin felt a headache coming on as he went back to the bench where Zig and Zu were.

"Alright guys, who wants to go in?"

Zu was the one who excitedly volunteered.

"Well, if you're excited, so am I! Let's show that jerk of a headmaster, he messed with the wrong clown! … Okay that sounded a lot cooler in my head." Hardwin admitted before heading towards the battlefield.

Roman sat beside Zig. His joltik crawled down to meet with the normal type as they looked towards Hardwin.

"Aaaahh? W-What?"

Roman and Zig looked over to see that the girl was finally waking up.

"Oh god, I didn't take another an extra pill, did I? At least I didn't wake up in a bloody cataplexy…hmm?" Maria noticed that she had a warm but slightly damp sweat shirt covering over her. "W-Where am I?" She spoke up as she looked to see her Pokémon out and around her who were happy to see her awake.

"Building L-2, Battlefield 78, and it's nnoowww, 5:16 PM."

The blonde girl looked confused towards the pompadour adolescent in front of her. "And who are…?"

"Roman Nel Spring, friend of the guy who took care of you while you were sleeping and who is about to face a former champion."

Maria looked at the sweatshirt and did recall there was a boy she was talking to before she suddenly fell asleep. "Oh! I was having a conversation with someone before… did you just say he was battling a former champion?" The sentence finally caught her attention as Roman pointed over to the battlefield where Hardwin and Zu were ready to face against Glenn.

"Go, Machamp!" Glenn threw out a powerful fighting type that towered over the already tall champion.

"Ready, Zu?"

" _Say_ **the word** , captain!"

Hardwin gave a small smirked and whispered something before turning towards Glenn. "Zu… let's test the waters!"

Zu flew up and screamed with an ear-piercing sound wave towards Machamp. The fighting type avoided the attack by jumping to the side. Then, Machamp leapt off the ground in a single bound and came up right above Zu.

His fist glowed and then unleashed a Mega Punch right on to the Zubat and hammered him down into the ground in a puff of smoke that shook the arena.

"That… that was one-sided…" Roman stated plainly as he felt that this was rather unfair for Hardwin to be treated so poorly in comparison to the other students.

Maria agreed with the glasses wearing adolescent. However, when she looked over to Hardwin, she was understandably confused. "Hold on? Is… is he… smiling?"

Indeed, Hardwin was indeed smiling. "Zu, you alright?"

Out of the smoke, Zu ascended up into the air and spread out his wings before flapping himself back into the sky. He looked badly injured, but he was definitely still conscious.

"Huh, I'm starting to see why Drake told me you would be a fun battle," Glenn admitted as he looked at his two opponents. "You must have Endure as a move, huh? That would explain why your pokémon is still flying. But I need only one hit left, while you haven't scratched us."

"All true points, Mr. Stark," The blue-haired clown admitted as his eyes narrowed while his grin widened. "But what if I told you that I was waiting for you to make a move?"

"Oho? A bold statement coming from someone in your circumstance. Think you can pull something like that off?" The former Champion of Ferrum slowly readied himself.

The young clown threw his right hand into the air. "I'm glad you asked!" Then he snapped his fingers that echoed in the near empty battlefield. "It's show time!"

Zu suddenly threw his wings out, and then a large fog of mist started flowing heavily and quickly from the small bat Pokémon. It quickly spread through the entire stadium, dampening the vision of almost everyone in the room.

"This is… Haze! Hardwin is producing so much that it's impossible to see except that Zu can see just fine because he uses echolocation!" Roman theorized despite the haze covering the field. "That's a good move!"

"But can't that Machamp…" Maria was about to point out that Machamp had more than enough power to blow away the growing fog. However, she and everyone else was distracted they _heard_ **that.**

"W-Wha? I-Is that… music?" Maria and the others, except Zig who was wagging his tail excitedly, stared in shock as they heard a guitar sound coming from inside the fog.

It was a small guitar sound that started… followed by another one, followed by an echo, soon a guitar riff started into a musical sequence. It was then that something had seemingly flown out of the hazy fog, it wasn't Zu, but actually… a mike?

"Was that one of the mikes the attendants were using?" Roman was increasingly baffled at what was going on in front of him along with his Pokémon, Maria and her Pokémon as well.

It fell back down into the fog just as the music started to build up faster and faster…

"~Welcome to the Jungle! We got fun and games!~"

The amount of jaws dropping was staggering on the bleachers. Zig only chuckled as he saw all the Pokémon and people staring with utter bamboozlement.

"~We got everything ya want honey, we know the names!~"

Glenn heard the singing and was also deeply confused. "Machamp, blow away the Haze!" He shouted to get his voice past the singing.

"~We are the people that can find whatever you may need!~"

However, for some reason, Machamp didn't react. "Machamp? Machamp!" He activated his Battle AR to see that his machine could still detect his Pokémon was right in front of him, but why wasn't he responding?!

Inside the haze, Machamp was wondering why on earth he couldn't hear his trainer. The fighting type was annoyed he couldn't see anything in this deep fog, but then he spotted a small silhouette flying towards him. He threw a punch, at the shadow, but it disappeared as soon as his fist made contact.

"~In the jungle, welcome to the jungle! Watch it bring you to your knnn knne knees, knees  
I want to watch you bleed!~"

Suddenly, a strange purple and goopy substance was shot all over him that seemed to be quickly hardening around him. The mighty fighting type quickly tried of break off the goop, but as he did, more and more was poured at him from different directions.

Machamp was pissed at all of this and with one strong effort he threw away the goop and slammed his hands together, creating a shockwave that blew away the haze. As soon as it did, Hardwin was revealed holding a mike and it seemed like the music and singing abruptly stopped.

"Ahh! Machamp, above you!" His trainer's voice finally reached Machamp and when the look up only to see Zu was flying right above him.

"Supersonic!" Hardwin acted quickly as he pointed to his friend as the another soundwave hit Machamp and disoriented him.

Glenn ordered his Machamp to fight through and hit his injured opponent, but then Zubat suddenly split into multiple versions of himself which meant that all those images Machamp saw during the haze were just Double Team images!

Hardwin punched the air in front of him. "Now, Zu! … Mega Punch!"

"Zubats can't learn Mega Punch!?" Glenn shouted out in confusion when lo and behold, one of the Zu images flew in with energy that was similar to a Mega Punch and landed right at the back of Machamp's knee! The impact of the blow caused the fighting type to buckle over as Zu pushed on through and flew back up in the air, knocking the Machamp into the ground.

"True," Hardwin said over the mike. "They can't learn Mega Punch, but they do know Mimic. And your Mahcamp used Mega Punch in more than one occasion during the haze screen!"

Glenn stared in utter shock before he suddenly started laughing even harder than before. "Alright, I'm not that smart, so how'd you do that, kid?"

"Sorry, Mr. Stark, I can't tell you that until after the battle," The eyes of Hardwin lit up as he threw his hand out. "Zu, Haze again!"

The zubat quickly filled the arena again with a deep, not see-through haze. Glenn smiled at the move and was thoroughly impressed by the boy.

"Kid, if it was anyone else, you actually might have won. But now? Play time is over." Glenn then pressed something on his Battle AR, suddenly a rainbow aura started shinning in the fog and then an explosion of light blew away the haze much faster than before. The burst of power threw even Zu for a loop as he struggled to stay in the air and forced everyone to shield their eyes.

When Hardwin opened them up, he was surprised to see Machamp enveloped in a rainbow aura that exuded with power.

"Go! End it!" Machamp then moved far faster than before, even though the goop from awhile ago was Venom Drench and should have reduced his speed and attack, this rainbow aura was somehow making Machamp go back into full power and beyond!

The fighting type then decked the flying type down back to the ground. But instead of crashing again, Hardwin was already there, catching his Pokémon—who then made both of them crash into the opposite side of the wall.

"O-OW!" The boy said as he rubbed his back. That hit could have done so much more… he was still holding back? Dang it! He had so much to learn.

Hardwin looked up to see a hand being offered up to him and saw Glenn with this hard-to-miss smile. "That was one of the most memorable battles I've had in a while. Now can you explain how the heck did you make a zubat do all of that?"

Zig came running up to Hardwin as he stood up and carefully held a weakened Zu. Zig was followed by those still watching the battle.

"Well, I knew that in a straight match, I would stand absolutely no chance at all against you and Machamp. Sooooo I figured out a strategy with Zu here on how to get around that. The purpose of the Haze was pretty straight forward, blinding everyone except Zu so he could move freely around the battlefield. That was the first part, but I also knew that you must be competent enough to order Machamp to remove that Haze… but what if… Machamp couldn't hear you?"

What would happen if a Pokémon couldn't hear their trainer? Well that would cripple one of the strongest parts of any trainer with their Pokémon, their communication! The boy found away to circumvent a pair's greatest strength? "He should have been able to. He was right in front of me, but you didn't hear me at all?" Glenn turned to his Machamp who just sheepishly shrugged his shoulders, rubbed the back of his head and scratched his nose at the same time.

"That was Zu and my doing. Zu learned how to mimic sounds from a Chatot, but he's far more sensitive to them because of his ears and echolocation. That's why I was singing, I was giving a loud sound wave to echo around the fog so that Zu could manipulate it. It was designed so that Machamp would hear mine, but not your voice, so it was basically isolating you from your partner."

"My my! How did your Zubat do that?!"

"We work in a Circus, and Zu helps out with the sound systems when they get broken sometimes. He can filter out sounds from practice in helping everyone else speak to the crowds for them. So he's more than familiar with filtering sounds he hears and projecting them."

"I'm impressed I never would have thought such an ability would be used like that in a battle! You might have actually gotten me if I didn't have Synergy Burst!"

"What is Synergy Burst?" Hardwin asked honestly.

"You have no idea what Synergy Burst is? It's a staple for trainers that were born and raised here in Ferrum!" Roman was just increasingly shocked at Hardwin for pulling off something so complicated, but at the same time not knowing something like Synergy Burst.

"I have to congratulate you, Hardwin. That was a great battle I had and I actually had a lot of fun! You have without a doubt passed your evaluation." Glenn fished for something in his pockets. "And Drake told me to give you this if I thought you earned it."

He tossed something in the air that Hardwin quickly caught with ease despite still carrying Zu in his other arm. When the young man opened his palm, he saw a see through crystal.

"It's a Z-Crystal, Normalium. Congratulations, young man." Glenn stated as he bowed lightly and started walking away from the boy.

Hardwin looked at the crystal with wonder before he placed it in his blue Z-Ring… a perfect fit.

"That, Wilburg, was a very, very unorthodox method of battling. How did you do that?" Roman asked him with even more interest than before.

"Well I noticed that a lot of trainers here are stronger and more experienced than me in almost every way possible… so I thought, instead of trying to catch up to them, why not turn fights into something favorable to me? It's kind of my basis in planning fights."

"Simple, but…hmm…" Roman started opening his notebook and furiously started scribbling things down.

The young circus boy just stared before he noticed the girl was finally up and about. "Oh! You're awake now?"

"Indeed I am. I must apologize for that, I must have not taken enough of my pills beforehand." She then handed him his sweatshirt back to him. "Thank you for helping me while I was down."

"You're welcome. Are you sure you're fine right now?"

Maria's smile lowered after Hardwin asked that. "I am well. Thank you for asking. I never did hear your name while we were still having a conversation?"

"I'm Hardwin Wilburg, or just Arz for short."

"Arz? As in arse?" Maria seemed confused at the pronunciation since it sounded like another word for butt.

"Uhhhh, I did not think of that until today." Great, he just found out his nickname is another word for ass. And was he called that for almost all his life!? "J-Just call me Will then."

Maria giggled. "Well then, Will, I must thank you for your sweatshirt during the times people had used weather moves in here. But I must be off; my family must be worried about me for being gone for so long. Farewell for now." Maria waved goodbye as all of her Pokémon eyed him cautiously.

"Oh right, Roman, where did you heal your Pokémon after your battle? Zu here is still like out cold."

Roman peeked out of his notebook for a second. "Hmm? Did you say something?" Then he went back towards writing in the book.

Hardwin sighed. "I'm starting to see a pattern here. I really hope not every day is going to be some kind of unexpected twist."

Still, all things considered, things would settle down instead of get even crazier.

* * *

 **A/N** : Hello, everyone! Here is the third chapter of Battle Craft Academy! A little more world building and we get to meet a lot of characters this chapter!

25th Doctor: Maria Faraday.

SomeoftheFame: Roman Nel Spring

FinalPower: Genesis Beaumont

Fool Arcana Kaiju: Blake Noxic

There are technically a lot of people who submitted. I was trying to find a way that I could somehow introduce their characters, but at the same time, I wanted them to have a chance to focus on them or not. For now, I was able to squeeze four (Maybe three or two since I more or less focused on the first years.) Ocs and mark their appearance.

Allow me to say not to worry. This story is going to be a little different, while Hardwin is one of the main characters, he's not always going to be the focus in some chapters. He's here as a tool for world building and introduction to Helio City and Battlecraft Academy. When things are settled down, I'm actually planning to have chapters that will center around your OCs instead of Hardwin. (That's right folks! You guys even get your own chapter down the lane!)

I am so glad for the support I've been getting for this story. In less than a week after the second chapter, I got like 3 more favorites, and four follows! (But only one review—*sad face*)

Speaking off, you're all probably wondering why this has been faster than so many usually slow updated OC stories… well… I'll be honest, I don't know what's going to happen in the future of my life that will affect this story, and I have other writing projects as well that isn't on this site, so for now, I'm trying to pump out as many chapters as I can before things start to mess with my life which is why this may seem frequent as of this upload.

Thank you for reading. Please support this fic by reviewing, favorite, and following it.

(Oh wait, before you all go, I have one last little fun One-shot I made for this chapter.)

* * *

One shot: Magi's day.

"I left some food for you in your bowl. Don't finish it all in one go." Hardwin finished explaining before he and the others stood in front of their door. "I'll be back in the afternoon. See ya, Magi!"

Magi glanced around the room, seeing no sign of Hardwin or anyone else in the room.

Splash!

Magi jumped out of the bowl with incredible precision, landing on its fin much like a person and then burping out a small fedora to wear on his head.

Magi flipped over to underneath Vincent's desk and placed his fin on the wall. A small wall caved in and a door opened up before the magikarp threw himself into the secret door. He slid through a water tube before landing inside a pool of water under a large screen.

It was then the screen opened up, revealing a man wearing a military uniform. "Good morning, Agent M. The nefarious Mister Professor Doctor has been seen in the northern area of the Ferrum Region in Helio City. It seems he has taken a job as a teacher in Battlecraft Academy, which is why you're here to put a stop to whatever horrible scheme he's up to. Remember Agent M, it's crucial that your secret identity as a normal magikarp remain intact! Good luck!" The man on the screen saluted just as magikarp raised his fin to salute as well, before diving into the water.

 _(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
Ma-gi!_

 _He's a fully-aquatic, crazy flip-flopper of action!  
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
(Dooby dooby doo-bah)  
He's a scaly red swimmer,  
Who'll never flinch from a fray-ee-ay-ee-ay!_

 _He's got more than just mad skill,  
Fe(Wah-ah-ah)  
He's got swimming fins and some gills,  
Fe(ah-ah)  
And the women swoon whenever they hear him sa-a-a-ay_

"Magikarp."

"~Aaahhh..~" _  
He's Magi, Magi the magikarp!_

 _But you can call him Agent M.  
Magi!  
I said you can call him Agent M!  
All Singers: A-gent-M!_

Meanwhile, on top of Battlecraft Academy's science and lab building…

A window was broken as Magi crashed in, kung-fu styled and ready.

A voice came from the shadows. "Ahh, Magi, the Magikarp… how unexpected. And by that I mean—COMPLETELY EXPECTED! HA!"

Suddenly the floor opened up and trapped Agent Magi in a glass sphere.

A dark and campy laughter echoed as the secret agent tried to break out of the glass sphere to no avail. "Haha! It's no use, Magi the magikarp! That is no ordinary glass! That is especially designed glass to stop magikarps!" He then briefly stopped his evil monologue. "And that handy man said I was crazy for wanting to make magikarp-proof glass. WHO'S CRAZY NOW!?"

Out of the shadows came a man who looked cartoonish by nature with a lanky body, a pointy nose, weird mop like brown hair and the fact he looked hunched over with horrible posture. He was wearing a distinct lab coat and had a fine mustache.

"Now allow me to tell you my evil plan. You see, I was invited to this school by a really cool dude I met online."

[Flashback.]

"Ahaha!" Mr. Professor Doctor chuckled evilly… while he was playing an online moba. "This spinning character guy is really quite skilled. I feel like we're on the same wavelength as we crush those that oppose us!" He said as he rapidly pressed on his laptop screen. "Ooh what's this? He wants to have a 'chat' with me?! Oh I'm so excited I don't even have much social interactions from real people!"

[Flashback end.]

"He offered me like this awesome job from our game chat and told me I was perfect for what he had in mind as THE HEAD OF THE ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE DEPARTMENT!" He threw his hands out in the air in an over the top manner and laughed manically while thunder boomed in the background— "By the way, what do you think of my evil Laugther-tron? I've always wanted to have lightning and thunder to go with my evil laughter, but do you think it's too much? … No? Ahh what the heck, I'll just keep doing it until I get sick of it. MWAAAHHAHAHAA!"

Magi may have been trapped, but while Mr. Professor Doctor was laughing like a lunatic, he noticed that there was some poorly placed hydrochloric acid canister on a nearby table.

"Oh right. Got sidetracked for a second. So the point is this place is great; the job is good, and my coworkers have to put up with me! But my problem came when I first tried to open the door to my new office—I got static electricity! It wasn't just then: the rails, static electricity! The door knob, static electricity! Going to the bathroom! … I don't know how but I still got static electricity! Well, no more!"

He put on a light switch revealing a large menacing looking machine.

"Behold, the No-More-Static-A-Tron! This beautiful machine is designed to suck in electricity! Once it's activated, it will hone in all potential static and nullify them, so I don't have to be annoyed by being randomly shocked! And now I shall activate it! Sure it might cause just a tinsy little problem with machines but that's only because machine have electricity in them." Soon, he took out a remote and started the machine. As it powered, the lights in the building started to flicker.

"It's working! It's working!" Mr. Professor Doctor cried out in elation while beholding his invention.

During this time, Magi banged on the sphere again; this time he hit the table that spilt over the acid on to his glass dome. With it weakened enough, the red fish kicked through the weakened glass sphere.

Mr. Doctor turned around in shock with a gasp. "Magi, the magikarp!? You've broken out of your trap!? But you are too late!" He grabbed another remote and pointed it at Magi. The thunder and lightning from before returned but this time it tried to strike the water type agent. The fish gracefully avoided each blast and flipped over to one side of the room.

"Hold still!" He then fire the machine as Magi splashed upward to avoid the hit and the thunder hit the machine instead.

"Oh no! I've hit the machine with actual electricity! It's going to blow!" Mr. Professor Doctor cried out as Magi jumped right back out the window he crashed and out popped up a hang glider from his hat.

"Curse you Magi, the magikarp!" The scientist called out in anger as the machine exploded, causing a massive blackout throughout the entire city.

Meanwhile…

"Hmm? Where their technical difficulties a bigger problem than they thought?" Roman asked before the lights quickly came back on. "Ahh never mind. After the battle, I was told to go pick up my uniform in a different building. But seeing as you didn't have your battle yet, I can wait."

Back up on the sky, Magi dove into a pond where a secret passage allowed him to enter back into Hardwin's dorm room and for him to jump back into his bowl before swallowing his hat.

After a while, Hardwin came back looking exhausted. "Oh hey, Magi, how was your day?"

"Magikarp."

"Man, sometimes I envy you, Magi. I bet you just stay in your bowl all day and just do nothing all day."

Hardwin fell onto his bed with another sigh, but he didn't notice Magi smiling at him.

* * *

A/N: … What? I like Phineas and Ferb. This one shot was just for fun and it isn't actually Cannon. Unless you want it to be. I can't even take credit for this idea because someone already did this in their deviant art about how a Magikarp can be just like Perry.

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy your day!


	4. Ch 4: Unity and Dumb Luck

Hardwin stared at himself in the mirror as he wore the specialized light gray long suit jacket with a crest of a shield and one sword being raised vertically on its right side. Underneath it, he was wearing a long sleeve white collar shirt, and underneath his collar shirt was just a plain white T-shirt. He wore black formal pants, but the dress code allowed any shoes to be worn, so he just kept his green rubber sneakers.

As he finished putting in the red tie, he took a step back from the mirror and showed off to Zig, Zu, and Magi. "So? What do you guys think? I feel like a proper student!"

" _Meh_." Zu played out a sound while Zig seemingly put his head back down to sleep on Hardwin's bed. Magi just continued to stare emptily.

"You guys, suck, you know that?" Hardwin spoke up before he looked over to his roommate, Vincent. "And what's with you? You've been kind of down this morning."

Vincent sighed. He was also wearing the same uniform as Hardwin, only a different pair of shoes, but he was looking at a mask he was holding.

"Yesterday, I was asked to remove this mask before battling since it wasn't part of the dress code."

"You wear a mask when battling?"

"Well yeah, it's stylish!"

Hmm, Hardwin couldn't really argue with that. "… Continue."

"Well, so I met with the Headmaster—crazy dude. And he told me that I could wear my mask." It seemed like he was drained just thinking about the ordeal…wait a sec.

"… That… sounds like a good thing. What happened?" He probably shouldn't have asked, but curiosity got the best of him this time.

Vincent looked hurt to say this next part. "He said that, and I quote: Man! Masks really are cool! You know what? I'll make all my students wear them too! … Then the Vice Principal came in, grabbed the man by the collar and pushed him out of the door."

"I don't know if I should be afraid that happened or afraid that I have absolutely no trouble believing that happened."

"Well, it did. And the Vice Principal gave me an ultimatum. If I do wear the mask while I'm in school that means everyone will have to wear a mask like mine. If I don't that will be the end of it."

"I don't really see how bad that is…"

"It was my style okay!? I always wore it!" Vincent snapped before calming himself down. "So who do you have for first period?"

"A professor named, Ferald Jurita. Room 405 in building A-1. He's a professor in trainer habits."

"Sounds interesting. I got assigned to battle history class in building C-4. Hope it doesn't explode! Haha… see what I did there?"

"… O-Oh! I get it!"

"Never mind. You're slow. See ya soon, ya clown." Vincent waved goodbye as he left the room with his greninja.

"I'm not slow, am I—oh you guys suck." Hardwin noticed his Pokémon laughing at him. "Come on, I don't wanna be late to my first class."

* * *

"Hello, I am Mr. Ferald Jurita." The tanned man with a bald head wearing a suit and tie explained as he welcomed in the first class of the morning. "This is Trainer Habits 102. It's a straight forward course that will teach you about raising Pokémon in general no matter what profession you are in. Since it's the first day, we're actually going to be ending super early, but you all do have homework. You have to catch one new Pokémon and bring it into class."

He was pretty straight forward. Apparently, he had to go leave early today for personal reasons, so pretty much everyone left the early morning classes.

"Hey," Hardwin turned over to see a familiar looking girl with an hour glass figure and long green-bluish hair tied into a pony tail in the female version of the academy uniform. The top part was the same, but for females they usually wore skirts with either long black socks or full pantyhose. "Are you alright? That's one nasty bruise in your eye."

"Oh it's alright. I got it to start conversations with people." At this point, he'd probably get used to it. "The name's Hardwin Wilburg, but many just call me… Will for short." That was going to get some getting used to. "By the way, are you…?"

"A Jenny?" The girl deflated as Hardwin nodded. "Yep, Jenny Hulia, or what I like to joke, Jenny # 4223. But I mostly go by Lia by everyone else."

The two walked out of the classroom and made their way out of the building. "Sooooo the whole cloning thing rumor where everyone believes all officer Jenny's and Nurse Joys are all just clones of each other isn't actually real, is it?" Granted, Hardwin did meet Vincent, but…

"It totally isn't but I'm convinced Arceus or Mew must have had it out for our ancestors or something because how else would almost all daughters look exactly the same each time?" Lia joked. "So, now I'm curious, how did you get the black eye? Did you get in a fight or something?"

"Sorta, it was a stray attack that hit me in a battle before I got here."

When they left the building, Hardwin quickly threw out two Poké Balls to bring out his pair of partners. "Lia, meet Zig, the laziest zigagoon in the planet and Zu, the student of a chatot and movie buff addict who thinks he's funny."

" _Well Eeeexxxccuuussseeee me, princess!_ " Zu retorted quickly.

"Huh, I've heard of Pokémon with telepathy and even some translating devices, but I've never seen a pokémon speak through pop culture references," Lia took out her several of her spheres of her own and threw out four Poké balls into the air. "I didn't really think of nicknames, so that there's Sigilyph, that's Delphox, she's Meowstic, and that's Altaria."

The officer Jenny descendant clapped her hands together. "Alright guys, we're going to catch some Pokémon! Get in gear cause we're moving out!"

That caught Hardwin's attention. "You're leaving already?"

"Yeah, most of my classes are tomorrow. Plus it's still early, so I can get to the good Pokémon spots while no one is still there."

The young entertainer had classes still, but he still didn't know much about Helio City. "Where specifically were you going to look for pokémon?"

* * *

"Bluewood Forrest. Yep this is it." As the carnival folks stood in front of what could be called… no wait, a forest didn't quite capture what this place really was. Despite being like a bus ride away, the trees were as tall as buildings and they looked older than any forest the circus folk had seen before.

According to Lia, there were wild Pokémon here. "Alright, Zu, where's the nearest pokémon?"

It was such a nice thing that he had a scanner Pokémon. His zubat looked over towards one direction and started flying over.

As they moved forward, they passed by a cabin with the local ranger. However, they all paused as they noticed the area looked like it had just gone through a battle.

There was a somewhat portly and out-of-shape looking man trying to put up a bill board with ducktape before the billboard collapsed again.

"Aaww man!" The man yelled in defeat as he fell to his knees.

Hardwin and his pokémon went over to the man. "Hey, what happened here?"

The park ranger sighed. "The past month there's been this Pokémon terrorizing Bluewood Forrest. Wild Pokémon, trainers, civilians, you name it! It's been causing trouble wherever it goes!"

"Really? There's a super strong pokémon out there?" Hardwin examined the field. It was rather interesting now that he looked at it closer. While there were signs of a battle here, he noticed that there were a lot more clean cuts, if the damaged cabin and sliced up bill board were any indication.

"It gets worse!" the Ranger cried out in grief. "Even some trainers from that high level school can't beat it! I tried to warn some of them, but they wouldn't listen!"

That caught the boy's attention. "Students from Battlecraft Academy? They went in there?" The young clown looked deeper towards the forest after learning that fact.

"Yeah, several of them at different times. They all promised to help stop that pokémon's rampage before going in there…" the ranger sighed as he looked at the state the cabin and the opening area was in. "I've only been here for a week!"

Hardwin looked back at the man and then looked towards the forest. On one hand, he could go and look for the pokémon for his homework, and maybe find out if he could capture this strong pokémon for his team.

But on the other hand…

"I'm going to be fired for sure!"

There was no contest.

"Hey don't feel bad. I've actually seen a lot worse." Hardwin walked up to the sad park ranger as he took off his jacket and started tying it to his waist.

"You have?"

Ahh, if Hardwin could tell you all the stories of broken items and bleachers while traveling with the circus. "Definitely. So much in fact that my granddad has thought me a few carpentry skills. Me and my Pokémon can patch this place up as good as new."

"Y-You'll do that? For me!?" the ranger looked surprised. "B-But what about the wild pokémon terrorizing the forest?"

"I'm more than confident the trainers can handle that problem. But you right now need a handyman. Now, direct me towards your actual tool box, because you don't use a rubber hammer to hit in nails." Hardwin pointed towards the black hammer with a bunch of unused nails before motioning towards Zig and Zu. "Come on guys, we've got work to do."

* * *

There was a thud as the person jumped off a large tree root. Their eyes looked around as they searched for any trace of the Pokémon in question.

"Where the heck is it? You'd think such a tough looking pokémon would be easy to spot around here."

A little creature popped up from their shoulder and shouted in agreement. "Sent!"

"I mean there are all these other pokémon too that are around here, but they all seem friendly enough. If only I could just ask them."

It was then that a large explosion in the distance caught their attention.

"That's gotta be it!" The trainer cried as they quickly ran before hiding behind a tree. They both looked behind the tree and noticed a vespiquen firing slash after slash on a ninjask. The larger flying and bug type looked ticked off as it continued firing the blasts of air at the smaller pokémon.

However, the ninjask was zipping around as fast as possible in any direction.

"Oh my gosh! That poor ninjask is getting attacked! That vespiquen must be the pokémon terrorizing everyone!" The trainer and their Pokémon jumped out. "Pip, use Quick Attack!"

The sentret jumped out of the shoulder of their trainer and ran up the closest tree before leaping off with increased speed to body check the vespiquen in the side and into another tree.

With that, the Ninjask quickly retreated away while the trainer and sentret faced down the vespiquen.

"What the heck are you doing!?" The trainer of the sentret looked over to see a young teenager with short blond hair, bluish-gray eyes wearing a navy blue vest over a gray shirt with white pants, sneakers and gloves. He was wearing what looked to be a Battle AR on his ear and he looked really ticked off. "Why are you attacking my friend!?"

"Wait that isn't the pokémon that's been harassing everyone in the forest?!" The owner of the sentret cried out in shock.

"Heck no, it was that stupid ninjask!" Another voice came from behind the trainer of the Vespiquen, he was somewhat taller than the two young teens and he had a long sleeved black shirt, a caramel colored jacket that reaches down to his feet, dark blue jeans, a pair of grey sneakers, and he sports a black fedora atop his light brown spiky hair that reached down to the end of his neck. And he had dark blue eyes that looked rather exhausted. "That stupid bug pokémon stole our meals!"

A little after he said this, a kirlia and an aipom followed after the brunette. Both Pokémon looked especially upset and ticked off.

"W-What?!"

"Who the heck are you anyway?" The trainer of the vespiquen asked while his bug type looked very, very ticked off.

"My name is Lydia Mollen, I'm from Battlecraft University. And you could lose the tone, blondie." The girl in question looked a little younger than most applicants, in which she was, but she also looked to be around the same age as the boy with the vespiquen. Lydia had as brown hair in a low ponytail with a few messy bangs in front and two bangs on the sides draping just above her modest bust, rosey-pale skin, sky blue eyes, and a somewhat curvy body. Her attire consisted of a short black vest with a white blouse underneath, a blue skirt, black knee high stockings, and white flat dress shoes.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who let the Pokémon terrorizing the forest get away!"

"Okay, okay! You two obviously got off on the wrong foot," the trainer with the two pokémon out stepped in and tried to calm the two. "Okay, my name is Jace Collins, and this here is David Ishihara. We're also from Battlecraft University and we found out that we're both pretty young when compared to most of the students… which I'm guessing you are too."

"So?"

"Are you also trying to stop this ninjask from terrorizing the forest?" Jace asked Lydia.

Lydia's sentret climbed up her shoulder. "Yeah. I saw a little girl crying because some scary pokémon stole her toys. I had to help out."

"I also saw some people get terrorized by this ninjask, but here's the problem: it's been here this past month," David folded his arms. "Even older students from the University haven't been able to stop this pokémon. And believe it or not, before you came, it was beating Vespiquen completely." He motioned to his bug type, who seemed very peeved at the thought of being bested by a thug of all things. "Deny it all you want, Vespiquen, he out maneuvered you at every move… which shouldn't be possible now that I think of it…"

"What do you mean by that? No offense or anything, but aren't ninjasks supposedly faster than even legendary pokémon? I remember a Pokédex entry describing them as moving so fast, they can be invisible." Lydia pointed out.

"But it wasn't going that fast. Most of all, it seemed like it was just toying with us."

"I would think it's cocky from not being stopped in over a month, but then you're right. It must have something that makes it confident enough to mess with and get away from so many trainers." Jace thought as well.

"We still have to stop it! I bet it can't take on more than one trainer at a time!" Lydia spoke out. "We just have to find it again."

"Actually," Jace began. "I have an idea…"

* * *

The ninjask in question had just finished stealing and devouring a cake he stole from unsuspecting family.

It was then that he heard sounds coming from deeper in the woods. It wasn't the cries of humans and their Pokémon, but it sounded… melodious?

As he kept flying towards the sound, he noticed a young man playing a wind instrument. He looked familiar; didn't he already steal food from him? Ahh well he was just asking for trouble coming to his woods…

Wait a second.

The ninjask suddenly moved from his spot as another Air Slash was launched where he was. Then he quickly turned as a sentret just tried to hit him in the sky. His claws started glowing with dark energy as he turned and unleashed a flurry of Night Slashes right at a Swift and Magical Leaf attack sent his way.

"What the heck!? He avoided all of those attacks!" The human stopped playing music as his monkey and jailbait Pokémon came out.

The 'annoying' vespiquen fired an Attack Order at ninjask, who quickly out raced the attack by circling behind a tree and slashing the evolved Pokémon with the momentum, slamming it into another tree.

Ninjask then flew into the air to avoid the sentret from using quick attack and hopping into a different tree. The normal type bounced again with another Quick Attack, but the ninjask was much faster as he caught the sentret's tail and spun around quickly before tossing right into the kirlia and aimbipom.

The bug type laughed before he avoided an Air Slash from the vespiquen that was strangely aimed right at his blind spot, but still managed to avoid quickly. The Ninjask sped off again, hitting the vespiquen with a light attack.

The larger bug and flying type simply forced a Healing Order to take care of the scratch. However, as she was trying to heal it, she was hit by another strike—this time it was stronger than the last. Before she could regain herself, the ninjask was right above her with a fully powered-up Fury Cutter and jousted her at full speed right into the ground like a meteor.

"Vespiquen!?" David cried out as he ran towards his friend. However, out of the smoke, the wild ninjask flew by with a smug smile before escaping away.

The three trainers looked up their pokémon before Jace was the first to talk. "That was atrocious."

"I don't understand; I've never seen a Pokémon so coordinated against an ambush!" David cried out as he recalled his fainted friend.

"You're telling me." Lydia picked up her partner, Pip. "That wild pokémon made us all look like chumps."

"Did we give away any position or something? Something that would have given the ambush away?" Lace recalled both his pokémon.

"We shouldn't have." David placed a hand on his chin and thought deeply. "But it was like he knew what we were planning…"

The sound of fingers snapping made the two boys look to Lydia. "Wait! We know nijasks have two simple abilities, but what if he's using a move that made him beat all of us?"

"A move? What like Detect?" Lace started to hypothesize as the three came together. "But wouldn't it fail if used too many times?"

"Here, let me check something." David pulled out his smart phone and started looking up information about ninjask. "Ah here we go, ninjask move pool list."

The two other Battlecraft Academy students surrounded David as he started searching the list for any move that might explain the ninjask's wild battling ability.

"Wait! Over there!" The male musician pointed to a move listed on the phone. "Mind Reader! Some ninjasks can learn Mind Reader!"

All of their minds clicked into place after hearing that. "Of course! It knew about the ambush because it must have read someone's mind!" The blonde boy slapped his forehead with his palm. Why did he not think of that!?

"Hey, Lace, don't you have a Kirlia?" Lydia pointed to the other brunette in their small group. "Since she is a psychic type, can't she make some kind of shielding for so he won't read our minds?"

The spiky haired boy rubbed the back of his head. "She would if she wasn't knocked over like a bowling pin."

Before he could speak further, a loud, guttural sound echoed through the area. This quickly caused David and Lydia to look around in a startled manner.

"Another Pokémon?! Shoot! The rest of my Pokémon are horrible in a forrest!"

"Mine too!" Lydia agreed with David.

"G-Guys?" Lace sheepishly raised his hand while his left one covered his stomach. "I-I just remembered… I haven't eaten since breakfast since that ninjask stole my lunch…"

"Oh." The other two students admitted.

"C-Can we try again later? I… I think I'm starting to hallucinate you guys into sandwiches. And I don't even like sandwiches!"

The trio, mostly Lydia and David since poor Lace was having trouble concentrating on an empty stomach, decided to head back and get their Pokémon healed before defeating that menace once and for all. However, on their way back, Lace was distracted as he smelled something in the air. It smelled like… a meal?

Welp, he knew where he was going.

The hungry boy followed the trail of food, making Lydia and David follow after him as well.

"Oh hey, it's the park ranger's cabin. Was it fixed?" Lydia noticed that the beat up cabin was starting to get patched up. Some damages were still seen, but it looked like it was being in the process of being cleaned up.

"Uh, Lace?" David tried to call out to the guy as he went towards a park table where a young man a little older than all of them was sitting down with a plate in front of him.

"You didn't have to cook a meal for us, Cain." Hardwin wiped some sweat off his brow as his pokémon, Zig and Zu were panting and almost drooling uncontrollably when they saw the meal placed in front of them.

Cain, the Park ranger smiled heartily. "Are you crazy? I wouldn't have gotten this place half as decent without you guys! This is just a small appreciation of my thanks!" The park ranger looked over to Hardwin's left. "I clearly don't remember you from a while ago."

Hardwin and his Pokémon glanced over to see a spiky haired teen wearing a fedora who looked especially hungry.

"Would you… like to eat?" Hardwin asked before the boy nodded furiously.

"Lace! Really, dude, you couldn't wait?!" The young clown noticed two other people heading their direction.

It was then that Zu suddenly flew up and fired an Uproar sound blast towards a random direction in the trees above them. The blast passed through as a ninjask appeared away from the table and the trainers.

"Oh gosh, not again! I forgot it came here in the first place because of my cooking!" The park ranger screamed in horror before diving under the table for safety.

"Aahh! It's the Ninjask!" The three newcomers quickly tensed as they saw the troublesome pokémon.

"Wait. This is the pokémon causing all that trouble!?" Hardwin stood up as he, Zu, and Zig got out of the table and pointed towards the bug and flying type.

"Don't underestimate it! It uses Mind Reader to figure out all your moves! You have to use a psychic or dark pokémon to fight it!" Lydia told Hardwin.

"I don't have a psychic or dark type…" Hardwin muttered as he stared at the ninjask. The bug type gave a smug look as he taunted the clown and his Pokémon and gave them a motion to come at him.

The clown looked back at the three. "Hey, did you guys battle this pokémon?"

"Yeah, we didn't figure out how he did what he did until after he beat us. Our only pokémon left are too destructive for the forest," the blonde boy explained. "You shouldn't battle him! He'll read all of your movements!"

Hardwin glanced back at the cocky looking bug type; he too looked like he was dismissing his opponent.

But then an idea occurred to the young boy. The Pokémon could react accordingly due to the fact he could read minds…

In that case…

"Zig, get in there! Zu, stay back!" Hardwin quickly commanded as his two Pokémon went in.

"Hey! Didn't you listen to what we said!?" Lace cried out.

"I did! Thanks for the warning, but you guys just gave me an idea!"

"You do know that he'll just figure out your plans too if you don't have a specialized Pokémon to protect you from his mind reading!?"

Hardwin knew that. But this was his thought process: what if _he had no idea_ what he was doing?

He threw out his arm with the Z-Ring on it. "I know we haven't tested this yet at all, but here we go! Z-Ring!"

…

…

…

"W-Was something supposed to happen?" Cain pointed out from under the table he was hiding.

"Huh. How does this work?" Hardwin looked back to his Z-Ring, making all the bystanders look on with shock.

"YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT!?" All of them screamed in surprise.

"Well yeah. I just got it in the span of two days. Yeesh. I didn't have time to figure out what it does, and it didn't come with instructions either." Hardwin pointed back to Ninjask. "Go Z-Move! … Fly! … Up, up and away!"

At this point, the ninjask just stopped and started to laugh uncontrollably while still in the air.

"You're making yourself look like a total fool!"

"I am quite aware of that, thank you very much!" Hardwin shouted back at the blonde boy before looking at the Z-Ring. "How does this thing even work? Do I have to like, think one with my Pokémon? Because that should be easy since all Zig wants to do is sleep."

"ZIG!?" The normal type obviously did not appreciate the jab.

"Don't try to lie to me! You've tried to sneak off several times while trying to patch up the darn cabin!"

However, whatever the two did seemed to work as the Normalium in Hardwin's blue Z-Ring started to have a rainbow aura.

"Alright! Z-Move! Whatever you are, go!" The rainbow aura gathered from the crystal and quickly wrapped around Zig. The energy surrounded the small normal type as everyone looked in shock.

"… Zig? Aren't you going to do something?" Hardwin asked his currently glowing Pokémon. It was cool, but it was also awkward that he wasn't seemingly doing anything.

"Zig zig?" From Hardwin's understanding, it seemed like Zig had no idea what to do next. At this point the Ninjask was just howling in laughter at the walking nightlight as his opponent.

"Well, do something! At least take a step forward!"

Zig did so—"ZIIIGGGGGGGGG!?" And he suddenly found himself going at insane speeds when he meant to just take a step forward.

The ninjask stopped laughing long enough to notice the inhuman zigzagoon going faster than he ever thought possible and smash right into him and right into a tree—correction, several trees before an explosion.

"Oh cripes! Zig!" Hardwin ran with Zu and the others right behind him.

They all ran up to where there was an explosion and as the dust settled, something was coming out of the smoke.

"L-Lin… Linoone…" A dizzy looking linoone walked out of the smoke and seemingly wobbled his way towards Zu and Hardwin.

"Oh hey, you evolved. Neat!" Hardwin nonchalantly spoke up to his dizzy Pokémon. "Maybe now you'll finally be less lazy!"

"Don't _bet on_ **it!** "

"You're right, Zu, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up." The blue haired clown looked in the crater that Zig had made and right in the center was the ninjask that had caused so much trouble for everyone else.

Seeing that it was knocked out, Hardwin took out a Poké Ball and chucked it at the bug type. He instantly caught it without much trouble.

"That… that was a Z-move! I've heard about those!" Lydia pointed out. "W-What you did… that was called Breakneck Blitz! It turns normal type moves into a powerful attack that makes your Pokémon charge at insane speeds!"

"Thank you for telling me that. I'll keep that in mind next time, right Zig?"

"Liiiinnnn." The newly evolved Pokémon shook his head and noticed he was a lot taller than he remembered.

"Who are you?" David asked in utter bafflement at the young man in front of them that got past a flipping mind reader, by completely winging it!? "Are you from Battlecraft Academy?"

"Oh yeah! My name is Hardwin Wilburg, and you guys are?"

"Hold up? Did you say Hardwin Wilburg?" David stopped him for a second as he fished for his phone. "As in Hardwin Wilburg, the number 10 ranked among the freshmen!?" He took out his phone and showed the online scores of freshmen with Hardwin's first photo—the one with a black eye and his Pokémon looking like demons or crazed fools—and right beside it said that Hardwin, a trainer that had never gotten his first badge, had somehow scored higher than a large percent of students who at least had eight badges.

"HE'S RANKED TEN!?" "I'M RANKED TEN!?" They all screamed at David before they all suddenly realized that Hardwin also screamed with them and looked at him in a confused manner.

"What!? I never had time to check the ranks!" The young clown tried to explain but he was still shocked at the idea he was ranked ten!? Which idiot in charge thought that was a good ide—

…

"Cruse you, Headmaster Spencer!" Hardwin howled to the heavens above.

* * *

Meanwhile…

"So you're telling me, that the reason why your office exploded was because of a Secret Agent Magikarp?" Mr. Spencer asked Mr. Professor Doctor.

"It's true! He even had this cute little secret agent hat that had gadgets and stuff."

Mr. Spencer solemnly shook his head. "That is without a doubt… THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD! Tell me more!" Even though he was older than his employee, Drake Spencer's eyes were shinning like that of a child.

"Well he has a theme song—hey, do you think I could have my own theme song?"

Headmaster Spencer stood up dramatically with a serious face. He started wistfully in the distance and stated, "I have found a purpose for all the power I now wield."

"… What are you looking at? Is-Is there something I'm something I'm supposed to be holding orrrr? Are you just going to stand there and look dramatic—oohhh! Now I get it! You have a plan! Yes… it's probably a cool one with how dramatic you're making it look."

* * *

"Why did you curse out the headmaster?" The brunette female asked in confusion.

"Let's just say… meeting him personally is taxing," Hardwin sighed. "By the way, who are you guys? Are you also from the academ—"

"LIINNNN!?" Zig tried to step forward during this conversation, but as he did so, he suddenly went into supersonic speeds in another direction.

"Wait, but I stopped the Z-move!?" Hardwin cried out.

"I-I think that was Extreme Speed. Somehow, not only did your Pokémon evolve during the Z-Move, but it must have learned how to do something like it?" There was a loud crash that interrupted Lace as everyone looked back to where Zig had bolted off to.

"Oh no! The cabin!" Cain cried out, looking at how Zig crashed into the cabin.

"Oh no! The food!" Lace shrieked as he saw the messed up table and tossed up food.

"Dang it, Zig! We just fixed that!" Hardwin yelled in exasperation.

And so, Hardwin and the other—in exchange for a free dinner, helped out patch up to cabin again. He did remember to add figuring out Zig's new evolution along with working on Z-Moves and introducing his new Pokémon.

All in all. Hardwin was getting used to the strange days come his way.

…

But then again, the best of us can't fully predict the future.

* * *

 **A/N** : Yo! A shorter chapter introducing three more characters.

Jace Collins: Raikou927

Lydia Mollen: Nyx-Vyx

David Ishihara: davidthemightypaladin

I know I said that I would give people their own chapters later, but I thought actually now seemed like a good idea to start at least one.

We get a little more world building in finding the outskirt areas of Helio City where towards the Northeast, we find Bluewood Forest. A lovely sight for wild Pokémon and people to live in peace. (Earth Parallel of Redwood Park with giant trees as far as the eye could see).

Also, hey! Zig evolved into a Linoone after a disastrous first attempt at Z-Moves. I thought that was a great time for Zig to evolve since no one would actually expect him to evolve like that.

But, guys! Guess what?! I'm excited for the upcoming chapters! Why you ask? Well… I promised that this wouldn't be a normal story. And I fully intend to keep that promise… (it might either take full effect in the next or the one after it.) But it's coming soon.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter where I tried to show off more of the other characters. I believe I could have done more, but instead I probably limited them more than their owners would have wanted. (Don't worry, I'll try to work around that later on.)

Thank you all for the support!


	5. Ch 5: For Whom Does The Bell Toll?

"Sooooooo is this… normal?" Vincent asked as he saw Zig zip around the battlefield in laps while still using Extreme Speed.

"Apparently, Zig now has trouble turning at super speed." Hardwin looked at the field with a stopwatch in hand as Zig was impressively running in a square.

"How is he making such sharp turns? I thought linoones could only go straight at fast speeds like that?"

"I got the idea when I took an act in staying on a ball for thirty minutes. Instead of trying to turn, he lifts up his hind legs and rolls in his front heels. Using the momentum, he shifts wherever his hind legs should go in the air and when he lands them back down, he goes back to running."

"Hmm, clever. So how's that new ninjask?"

"I named him Jax for short. He was a handful at first, but I was able to pacify him with the promise for free meals thanks to the recipes Cain gave me. Now, he just a walking ego machine who thinks he's the best."

"Speaking of the best, how the heck did you get ranked number ten?" Said the one ranked number eight among the freshmen.

"I blame the headmaster." Hardwin spoke up as if that one sentence would explain everything.

"Ugh, my condolences." It really did explain a lot of things in this school.

"Do you even know what the top ten of each year have to do?"

Vincent took out a brochure. "According to this, the top ten students have to join a special class once a week. At least, I'll know you there, so we finally have a class together."

"What do you think being in that class is all about considering it's the weekend right now and it won't come for the next three to two days?"

"Probably some high level training. I could use a challenge."

"Well of course you can handle it. You've participated in like a bunch of leagues and Grand Festivals."

"Don't sell yourself short. I heard you actually gave the previous champion of Ferrum a run for his money."

"Vincent, I told you he was holding back the entire time."

"Yes, but you have to recall, you made him hold back _less_. That says a lot from someone who never won a single badge. Give yourself more credit."

"I would, if it wasn't for the rumors how I heard that the top ten was filled with tough trainers. What If I have to battle them!?"

"Sounds like fun." Vincent smirked.

"Okay, you are so not empathizing with me here."

The sound of a door opening caused the two boys to look over to the training stadium's entrance.

"Ahh! There you are, Will! Come on! The rest of us are ready!" Jenny Hulia, or Lia called out to the blue haired boy with an excited wave. She was followed by a large group of people that consisted of the following: Roman Spring, Maria Faraday, Jace Collins, David Ishihara, and Lydia Mollen.

"Oh, right!" The young boy then called out to Zig to stop running and call it a break for now.

"Huh? Where are you going with all of them?" Vincent asked.

"I was actually going to tell you that in a bit. The Helio City Museum is having its grand reopening with a new exhibit. I thought it would be lonely to just go with my Pokémon, so I looked up all the people I met here and asked them if they wanted to come. You can come to."

"You've met that many people already? The week isn't even over yet." Vincent looked in shock.

"So is that a yes?"

The celebrity sighed and shook his head before looking over to his greninja and getting a nod from the water type. "Sure."

"Sweet!" The blue haired boy stood up. "Alright guys! Let's head towards the museum!"

* * *

The Helio City Museum was an amazing blend of both historic past and technological advances of the future. The place had exhibitions spanning from Johto's and Sinnoh's distant past accompanied with holographic projections of what time would have been like then. They had skeletons of ancient Pokémon that took the center of the main lobby.

However, there was one section that the Museum was promoting during its grand reopening.

"Now here we have our newest exhibit believed to have been from a very closed off and prehistoric civilization," the guide for the group the first years were all in all showed faded but partially restored art of a long forgotten culture. "The name of these people has unfortunately been lost, but from what archeologists could decipher, there is this word that seems to be repeated a lot in what's left of their recordings known as the Kilin."

The guide went on as they walked around, but then Maria trailed behind the group. Hardwin spotted this and slowed down a bit to wait for her.

"So are you alright?"

Maria's mood seemed to go down. "Of course I'm fine. Wouldn't I be fine and dandy? I don't always forget my meds, you know."

"Oh sorry about that. I was just… nevermind."

Maria sighed. "No, no. I'm sorry about that. I get a touch… crabby when I get treated like some fragile doll because of my condition. I came to this school to get away from all that bloody baby-coddling."

Hardwin gave a small laugh after hearing that. "Sorry, it's just I thought that you were a lot more badass than I thought. I mean, you even had a disability and you still got in to Battlecraft. That is super impressive!"

"Really?" Both Maria's and Hardwin's Pokémon just kept looking back and forth between their two trainers. "You're not just—as they say—'yanking my chain'?"

"Yanking my chain? Well that's an awkward slang to hear nowadays. But no, I really do mean it. I'm impressed that you're not letting anything stop you from doing what you want to do and that, my lady, is bloody impressive."

"Oh don't you start now!" Maria gave a light shove towards the taller boy before they both laughed.

After the tease, she pointed to Hardwin. "That reminds me: I remembered your battle with Mr. Stark. There was that bit you did with the-the snapping of fingers, yes? Yea, you snapped your fingers and yelled, 'It's show time'? What, you have a catch phrase?"

"Errr well umm. It's sorta my mantra that my dad taught me before each show—"

"Show? What show?"

"Oh right, I never got to tell you. You see, before here, I was a clown from a circus."

"A clo-clown?"

"Yep."

"A clown?"

"Uh-huh."

"A clown as in, the one from a circus with the rainbow afro, silly make-up and bright shinny, red nose that squeaks? That same one?" Maria's disbelief only grew along with an amused smile as she imagined the young man in front of her with a silly get up.

"Well my squeaky nose as green," Hardin delicately corrected. "but yeah, I am a bonafide, pure-blooded circus clown born and raised."

"Shut up. You're joshing me!"

"My name's not Josh, but fine! You want proof?" With utter confidence, Hardwin quickly took out something from his pocket and quickly blew on it. It was actually a long red, tube balloon. "Ha! Years of inflating balloons with your own lungs have finally come in handy! Here you go, it's an ekans!"

Maria raised her brow at the blue haired boy. "Really now?"

"Ha! No way am I dishonoring my clown pride with that lazy joke! And yes, I am aware of the paradox of clowns having pride." Hardwin retorted back as he kept his eyes in the front while he moved the balloon behind his back and then he started working on it without looking?

"Ta-da!" Hardwin cried out as he brought the balloon out in the front, revealing it to be… "A balloon girafarig!" He then handed the red balloon to a rather stupefied Maria.

"D-Did you just do a balloon animal behind your back?" The blonde and emerald eyed girl gawked at how well done the rubber-inflated pokémon was in her hands. "And why did you have a balloon pokémon just ready to go?"

"Years of practice! As for your second question, I always keep potentially a dozen inflatable balloon pokémon for party tricks and ice breakers," the clown beamed with pride. "and now for my favorite trick!"

Hardwin took out a coin and showed in front of the narcoleptic and her Pokémon. "Keep your eyes on the coin…" He brought his hands to wave pass each other and in one instant the coin disappeared.

Maria rolled her eyes. The previous trick was a lot more impressive. This one was just where he would 'find' the coin near her ear or something.

"Where did the coin go?" Right on cue as Hardwin looked at her direction. "Oh! There it is!"

When he reached for her ear, Maria was still wondering why this was his favorite trick. It was only then that her eyes widened as she noticed that he didn't just pull out a coin.

He pulled out the coin which was somehow placed in the center of a white rose?!

"Huh?" The girl looked on in shock as Hardwin removed the coin from the center of flower.

"Well, it seemed like the coin had liked you so much, it went and got you a flower!" Hardwin chuckled, obviously delighted at the reaction his favorite trick.

"Don't tell me you just keep flowers on you as well?"

"Weellll I might have picked that up on the walk here, and I totally didn't see a no picking up flower signs anywhere, but," It was then that Maria was once more stunned as Hardwin stepped forward to her and placed the flower on the side of her hair. "I always did find a girl with a flower on her hair to be prettier to look at than any party trick."

It was then from behind them, something played out very fast. "~ _You've been hit by—You've been struck by—A Smooth Criminal!~_ "

"ZU!"

If it wasn't obvious now, (even if you somehow missed Zu playing a very specific line in Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal), Maria's red face was certainly hard to miss. "A-Are you flirting with me!?"

"Why? Is it working?" Hardwin smiled, keeping in a potential laughing fit from coming out. "B-Becuase if it's too much, I can totally stop."

The blonde girl sputtered incoherent babble for a second before she could finally string coherent thoughts and words. "What? I'm just… surprised?"

"You are? You're very pretty, so I assumed you must have been complimented before."

"I was but those that did weren't half as smooth as you, Mr. Clown." Maria gave a coy smile as she reached for the flower on her head to place it better on her hair.

"Why thank you, I was always told to treat a beautiful lady nicely."

Maria gave a proud huff. "However, while you certainly are placed high, my standards are much higher to be won over with cheap party tricks. Besides, I bet you do that to all the beautiful girls you meet."

"What no. I mean, I have thought about flirting with some of the beautiful girls I've met so far, but that's just it. Harmless flirting. I have no idea what to do in a romantic situation because I've never been in one. You're also the first one I ever tried it on." Hardwin admitted while rubbing the back of his head.

"Now I know your joshing me." Maria laughed as she walked ahead. Her Pokémon all seemed to leer at Hardwin as they passed him by but she still kept the flower on her head.

" _Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you,_ **Hardwin,** _who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. LOSER!_ "

"Oh rub salt in my wound, why don't ya? And hey, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, Uncle Ferdinand always said to take rejection with grace. Besides, it's probably for the best since I wouldn't know what to do if she actually was interested in me." The blue haired clown responded to his zubat.

However, he didn't know up ahead, Maria had taken the flower and deeply inhaled its fragrance.

"Now why is it that rich lords have the wit of a clown, yet a real clown has the charms of a prince?" She wistfully spoke out loud as she smiled at the rose.

The two had found out that they really were left behind as the group had long left the Kilin Exhibition. In the center of the exhibition was the main attraction: a large and ancient bell that had three major colors of red, blue, and gold that circled around the bell like rings and these rings almost looked like strange creatures biting their tails.

Maria looked at the description of the three story high bell. "This is dubbed the Bell of Balance, it was found in what people believed to be a prehistoric tower. However, despite its house having been long decayed, the bell itself has remained in good condition for unexplained reasons. Researchers are unable to specify what the bell was made for and what it's made out off, but they have noticed that it doesn't seem to chime even when it is hit from the inside or out."

"Looks pretty. I've never seen a really big bell before." Hardwin came up and stared at the ornate bell.

"It's strange when one thinks of it. Whoever these people were, they seemed to prioritize taking care of the bell more than their culture and people. I wonder what it meant to them?"

"We'll probably never know." Hardwin looked around and saw no sign of the group. He turned to Zu, "Hey, think you can detect any of them talking? Or the host lady?"

Zu did as he was told, but suddenly went to alarm mode.

"W-Why is he doing that!?" Maria and her Pokémon tried to cover their ears.

"Zu! Zu! Calm down! What's got you so spooked—"

" _Help! Back up! There are some weird men down in the basement! Requesting immediate back up! Why isn't this goddamn radio working!?_ " Zu quickly played out a voice he heard. It sounded desperate and besides the panicked voice, there were sounds of screams of horror from other men followed by unfamiliar sounds.

"Zu, Zu! Keep it down!" Hardwin quickly said as he grabbed Zu and started walking away from so many people with Maria close by.

"Where did you hear that?" Hardwin asked Zu when they were in less crowded and isolated area.

"Umm, Will?" The blue haired boy looked at Maria who was holding her phone and showed him a unable to connect screen. "The wifi and signal just died in my phone."

" _Sir,_ " The two quickly looked back at Zu who now had a colder and monotonous voice play out instead of the one that was currently in panic. " _All the security at the basement have been dealt with. We are on standby._ "

" _Good,_ " Zu picked up another voice, " _This is Alpha Leader, to all teams. Delta Team is in position, begin operation in T-Minus 5,4,3—_ "

Hardwin quickly glanced around and noticed that they were near an ancient mummy exhibit from Unova.

" _2—go time._ "

And the lights died down instantly, covering the entire museum in darkness.

The sounds of desperate screams pierced the halls, causing a chain reaction that made everyone panic at the screams. There was a large fizzing sound as gas started filling into all the rooms. Zu, acted quickly and blew the gas from reaching his trainer and those in his immediate area.

Hardwin quickly grabbed what he hoped was Maria's hand. "Is that still you?"

"Will? What's going on?"

"I have no idea! Zu!?"

" _Come with me if you want to live!_ " Zu started flapping ahead as Hardwin followed and led everyone else after him.

They came towards a locked door and Maria shined her phone light on the door.

"Zig." Hardwin quickly turned towards his normal type before he made every stand back and let the normal type freeze the locks and bite them off. "Alright, let's go!" He cried before they went in and froze the door shut behind them to prevent the gas from coming in.

They entered into the backroom where they spotted closed and unopened exhibits and crates scattering the area.

" _The coast is clear!_ " Zu spoke out in a whispering man's voice.

"What's going on!?" Maria asked as she was scared at the fact the entire building went from screaming to deathly silent in such a few moments.

"Zu, can you pin point, Vincent and the others?"

" _He's alive, but he's down for the count!_ " Zu seemed to play out a voice of a talking play-by-play expert.

"What? Are you sure? He had like a bunch of mega Pokémon and a powerful Greninja!"

Then Zu took a voice sample from a famous movie. " _Sleeping gas! Don't breathe it!_ "

"So that was what that gas was," Hardwin spoke out loud. "Good job on blowing some of them away."

At this moment, the ground started to shake. Distant sounds of large metal slammed in the distance, and signaled some kind of sealing.

"W-Was that the lockdown protocol of the Museum?" Maria asked. "The host woman talked about it briefly in that it would lock down the museum in a case of emergency. But what the bloody hell is going on?!"

Everyone turned to Zu.

The little bat opened his mouth, " _Sir, according to infrared, all civilians are currently knocked out due to the gas—hold on a moment._ "

Everyone froze as they heard the word infrared.

" _Sir, I'm detecting two civilians still conscious in backroom 3 with several of their pokémon._ " Zu played out the voice much to the fear of everyone else still in the room.

" _Get Echo team in there, stat and subdue them. The last thing we need is anyone getting any crazy ideas. The rest hurry up and corral the unconscious._ "

"Dang it!" Hardwin shouted as he looked around. They were sitting ducks in here.

However, Maria started to think. "They are detecting us through infrared, yeah?" She asked before Hardwin nodded.

"I do believe I have a plan in the works!" That is not how they say it, but okay. "Zu, when are they coming?"

She received her answer but not from Zu, but the fact there were cracks coming from the frozen door Zig put up. Hardwin threw out Jax's Poké Ball while Maria put off her flashlight, brining everyone else back into darkness.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Hardwin was having a lot of trouble since the only light source in the room was just willing put out.

"Wait for it…" Maria started before the sound of ice shattering hit the ground. Out of the dust, laser pointers came out that were on top of rifles pointed at the group. Around a dozen people with Pokémon—all wearing some kind of special goggles that allowed them to see better in the dark.

Maria smirked as she raised her hand in the air quickly. "I'm nicking this! It's show time!" She snapped her fingers before saying something like a whisper to her chikorita.

"Chika, Sunny Day."

The room suddenly flashed with bright sunlight throughout the room. For Hardwin and the others, they were a bit stunned from the sudden flash of light to come into the room. However, it was far worse for those who actually were wearing night vision goggles in broad daylight.

As soon as Hardwin heard the screams from the riflemen and their Pokémon, he quickly pointed. "Zig, Extreme Speed! Jax, Fury Cutter!"

The two Pokémon went off like blurs smacking each of the gunmen and their Pokémon at high velocity speeds that were more than enough to knock out a dozen or two of them with their guards down.

Hardwin looked over to Maria who was holding Chika in her arms. "That. Was. Genius!"

Maria smiled. "Some night vision goggles have special tubes that go completely greenish white or completely black depending on the circumstances when light is suddenly switched on. That happens because the amplification plate gets overwhelmed by all the photons pouring in. Obviously, these rampallians didn't get better quality goggles." However, she blushed as she looked at Hardwin's confused face. "What? I read a lot."

"Oh uh right! Zu, do you know where the others are?"

" _Welcome to the Observatory Deck._ " The zubat played the voice of the hostess showing them around previously.

"Okay, so basically, it's just the two of us—who have never won a single badge in their lives—that now have to fight off a bunch of terrorists with armed guns and obvious military training to save their friends who are pretty much in the opposite side of the museum filled with these guys where we can't use the same trick twice." Hardwin stated out loud.

"Aww bugger." Maria honestly deflated after realizing the gravity of the situation.

However, Hardwin smiled. "Actually, that would only apply if we went at them head on," his smile grew wider with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "And I have no intention of making this a fair fight."

* * *

In the Observatory, the last of the soldiers were piling up the civilians and their Pokémon.

Despite being indoors, the sun was brightly lighting up the room.

"Everyone, be on guard. The situation is now out of hand," The disguised man, who was Beta Leader told everyone. "I want patrols to be doubled and keep an eye on the hostages in case they wake up. get some Sleep Powders ready in case they strat to wake up.

The ground rumbled a bit, and all of Beta Team pointed their guns towards one corner of the room. Something was coming out of the ground.

"Heracross formation: B-1, B-7 flank right!" Beta Leader cried out as they all took strategic positions towards the crack coming from the corner of the room.

The hole opened up, but instead of a pokémon coming out of it, a large mist filled into the room.

"What the heck!?" Beta Leader cried out as the mist quickly filled the room. "Switch to, infrared—"

It was then, as he reached for the goggles on his head, he noticed that it wasn't there anymore. "The hell?"

More cries came out as someone else shouted out. "Sir! Someone stole my goggles!"

"What how!? We saw no one come out! And there's no way they could move that fast with the mist!" The leader cried out.

"Ninjask…"

The leader turned around, only to have his vision turn black from seeing a glowing light.

Jax quickly moved at speeds so fast he was invisible. Usually, he would have a large sound whenever he would move this fast. However, Zu was covering his back by hiding his noise, allowing him to rush to all of the enemies and hit them while they were all blind.

Even though the mist was thick, Jax was ordered by Hardwin to use Mind Reader on Zu who knew where all of the others where thanks to his ability to capture sounds.

Meanwhile, another hole opened up nearby the hostages. Zig came out first before Hardwin, Zu, Maria and her Pokémon.

"Alright, Jax should have taken out most of the guns, we should wake up the hostages—"

"Sir, there's someone near the hostages!"

"Whoever's left, open fire!"

"Serene, Protect!"

In the span of a second, the few guns that remained fired on towards Hardwin, but thanks to Serene, an energy barrier was formed that stopped the bullets and let Jax be able to move in and cut some of the remaining guns in half.

"Wake them up!" Maria cried out as she ordered her own Pokémon to fire back.

Hardwin nodded as he looked around among the hostages. "Where the heck is Vincent!?"

* * *

"Sir, we've lost sight of the two trainers!"

"What!?"

"The entire floor is filled with sunlight! One of their Pokémon had Sunny Day! Now we can't properly detect them anymore!"

"What about Echo Team!?"

"They're not responding sir!"

"Damn it! Everyone accelerate the operation! The police already have encircled the museum and watch out for the hostages!"

"Sir! This is Foxtrot! Something's wrong in the observatory deck! Beta Team has locked themselves in and we're getting no communications!"

"How the hell are two trainers doing all of this!?" The leader growled. "Nevermind! Jump to last phase, now!"

* * *

"V…t…in… Vin… Vincent!" The black haired boy opened his eyes to see Hardwin reclining his hand back—p

"OH GOD! OW!?" The celebrity cried out after feeling the sting of Hardwin's slap.

"Oh good, you're awake." The blue haired boy managed to say calmly amidst all the fog and attacks firing everywhere.

"W-What the hell happened? All this gas came out and then suddenly… dear god man! Did you have to slap me so hard?!"

"I was trying to wake you up!" It was at this point that Maria's chansey, Serene, summoned a Light Screen barrier around them. Hardwin looked over to the pink normal type. "Did you get his Greninja up?"

Serene the chansey pointed over to a red face greninja who seemed to be rubbing his face as well.

"You really need gentler ways of waking up people." Vincent told Hardwin.

"In the middle of gunfire and Pokémon attacks right now, so no time!" Hardwin pulled the guy up. "Now get to fighting since you're the one here with the best raised Pokémon!"

"Fighting in dense fog? How did you even get it like this?" Hardwin pushed Vincent back down when Zu screamed out something and a bullet passed through over their heads. "Okay never mind, aim for the guys with guns is a good enough hint."

Vincent threw out his Pokémon, before helping tide out the battle.

After a few more minutes, all the hostages were awake while the terrorists and their Pokémon were subdued.

Roman, out of the ruined observatory, noticed a large hole in one side of the room. "Where did this come from?"

Maria was nearby when she heard this. "Oh that was Hardwin's idea. Instead of going through rooms of these blokes, his ninjask and linoone both knew Dig and made a path underneath for us. Before we popped up here, he made Zu fill up the tunnel with Haze before unleashing all the fog into the room like a smoke screen."

"But then how were all of you able to see?" The boy wearing glasses asked.

"Hardwin's ninjask knew Mind Reader, and was able to pinpoint where all the gunmen were because Hardwin ordered Jax to use mind reader on Zu, who knew exactly where all the weapons were and he was fast enough to slash a majority of them while avoiding the other Pokémon. He also had Zu prevent them from getting to their communication links by filtering out his Jax's noise into their communication instead."

"That… that was rather clever," Roman admitted. "I had never considered moves to be used like that."

"Yea… he's really out there…"

"Okay!" Jenny Hulia called out to everyone, catching their attention. "Now that everyone is awake, does anyone know who these people are and why they're here? All the ones we've tied up are out cold and they won't be waking up anytime soon."

As if on cue, there was a large echoing bell sound that could be heard even from the observatory. Everyone turned towards the sound and remembered that the direction it was coming from was actually the Kilin Exhibit.

"Hey, is that… the bell that couldn't be rung?" David asked at it continued to ring a rather soothing sound.

Zu instantly turned around when he heard something. There was a natu standing on top of the tied up thugs and Pokémon. Zu tried to warn everyone, but the round, small psychic bird made their eyes glow and teleported all of their captives away.

"Zu, where did they go!?" His trainer asked.

" _They flew out of radar sir!_ " Zu panicked.

"Wait what!? You can't detect them anymore!?" Hardwin asked.

" _The police have entered the building!_ " Zu cried out before he played out the voices of an Officer Jenny and other policemen saying that the building had just been cleared.

"Aww man," Lia shook her head. "My mom is going to kill me."

"We were attacked by terrorists, and you're worried about your mom?!" Lydia looked at the girl. Sadly, it wasn't hard to figure out that Jenny Hulia's mom was more than likely the head of Helio City's Department.

"Trust me, you don't want to know…"

* * *

"Do you have any idea how worried I was!?" Lia said nothing as her mother started scolding her.

"Mom, how was I supposed to know about a sudden terrorist attack? And besides, I was fine, my friends were actually super hardcore!"

"I know I know! I just… I don't want to lose you like…" She paused before hugging her. "I'm just so relieved you're safe."

Lia sighed as she hugged back her mom.

"Chief!" One of the other police men saluted to her before the two of them let go of their embrace. "There's something really off. Strangely enough, it seems like there was almost nothing stolen from the museum."

"They put the entire place under lockdown, were armed to the teeth, took hostages, and nothing was reported stolen?" Officer Jenny asked in shock.

"They say that there have only been damages, but nothing else seems out of place."

"Wait a second. Lia, you can go back to your friends."

"What?! But mom!"

"This is for the police, and you're a civilian. Go." She emphasized that last word darkly.

The younger daughter hesitated but begrudgingly did as she was told and left the area. It was then she started thinking about something…

"Oh hey, Lia." The blue haired young lady looked over to Hardwin who was wearing a blanket. "Why did the medics give me this blanket? I mean, not that I don't like it? But what is it for?"

"It's a shock blanket; you put it on people who are in shock."

"But… I'm not in shock. At least, I think I'm not? Am I, Zu?"

Lia's eyes widened when she saw Hardwin's zubat. "Wait, Will! Your zubat heard everything going on in there; at any point did those guys say what they were after?"

Hardwin looked over to his poison and flying type, who sadly shook his head.

"Sorry, no. All he had was something about focusing on the mission before they somehow got away from his ability."

"This had to be a long time plan. The way it was done was way to organized," Lia put her hand on her chin. "Not to mention that I overheard my mother's detectives say that a few of the security in the Museum had fake backgrounds…"

"You really paid attention to that, huh? I was just focused on trying not to get killed." Hardwin admitted.

"Well I want to be a detective even though my mom—never mind. Are you sure there wasn't anything that hinted to what those mysterious people were doing? They went through a lot to steal almost nothing."

Hardwin thought about it. There was something that didn't sit right with him in the back of his mind.

"Hold on. I think there was something. Do you remember the bell in the Kilin Exhibition? I read its main description that no one could get it to chime. But then, we actually did hear it."

Lia's eyes widened. "A clue! Yes! Perfect, Will, come with me!" Jenny wasted no time as she grabbed Will's hand and dragged the boy away.

"Wh-Whoa! What hey, my blanket!" The boy cried as he accidentally let it drop.

"You're fine!" Lia declared as she dragged the boy away from the crime scene.

However, just a little away from the two. Maria Faraday remained frozen as she saw Lia grab Hardwin's hand excitedly and she didn't know why.

"A-Are you sure we should be doing this?!" Hardwin asked as Lia snuck him back into the Museum.

"Shhh!" Lia told Hardwin to shut up before they both hid behind a large, nose-less bust of an ancient king in order to wait for some policemen to pass by.

"You know, I was trying to avoid terrorists, but now I'm avoiding police in the same day?" The boy whispered as Lia ignored him and led him towards the Killin exhibit.

The large bell seemed mostly intact, but Lia knelt to the ground in front f the bell. "There was a machine here…"

"How can you tell?" Hardwin looked back to see if any policemen would come back.

"See there? Those scratch marks? They look like legs of a machine that was hastily put down. By the distance between the scratches, I'd imagine that the legs were at least 12 feet apart in width and 6 in feet…" She then stood back up and looked up the bell. "Whatever it was, it heavy enough to scratch the floor and it seemed to be used on the bell that must have caused the bell to ring. But why? What does ringing an ancient bell do?"

"Y-You got all that from just scratches on the floor?"

"Like I said, I want to be a detective… and I also know that you didn't get your black eye from an accident."

Hardwin looked guilty for being caught lying. "Well you see, I—"

The young man was interrupted when Lia started laughing. "You're a lot nicer than I thought you were, Arz the Clown. It's one of the reasons why I need your help."

"M-My help?"

"Meet me at "(T)ea and (M)iso Soup restaurant at this address," she quickly took out her phone and texted something to Hardwin. "at that specific time."

This was all moving a bit fast for Hardwin. "Uhh huh? What? S-Sure? I'll be there."

Lia winked at him with a smile. "Then it's a date, see ya! And don't tell anyone!" She said as she suddenly ran ahead, leaving a very confused Hardwin.

"Wait, what? Date?! Hey, Lia what was that all about!?"

"Hey you! What the heck are you doing here!?" Hardwin looked over to see some police men pointing at him.

"W-Wait, I can explain!" Well he would have, if not for the fact that the police man was a little too energetic and tackled him down.

"You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used against you in court!" The officer said as he pulled out cuffs.

"Zu, Zig, Jax! Help!" Hardwin cried out to his Pokémon, only to see them laughing at his expense.

God dang it, he needed better friends.

* * *

 **A/N:** Hey guys. Sorry for the fact there weren't any new OCs, but I think it's more than enough time to start the overall plot of the story. I mean, I like everyday school life as much as the next guy—I really do, the few that I watch have a lot of memorable characters when they aren't bloody focusing the cast on one gender.

In this chapter, we find out a mysterious organization—and oh my god they have GUNS! That means this story is super duper edgy—(Joke). In all seriousness, I have interesting plans for the villains of this story. Hopefully you'll like them.

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. There are some parts I could have done differently, but I chose to keep this chapter short.

* * *

"Zealot, good job on rescuing Beta Team."

"It's no problem. Thankfully there was a file that could easily be accessed from the school database that described one Hardwin Wilburg's partners as 'special'. It wasn't hard to figure out somehow his pokemon were the ones messing with communications. ...Was the bell rung?"

"Yes, we're now triangulating the area where we believe they will awaken. It's only a matter of time with the readings our scans took."

"Good."


	6. Ch 6: Inner and Outer Demons

It was a small bus ride towards the place that Lia told him to go. However, Hardwin's day wouldn't start out so simply. During the ride, Hardwin had the mistake of letting Jax out along with his other Pokémon. The newly caught Pokémon had far less experience in society and therefore stole a shiny rattle from a baby because he was interested in the toy.

To cut things short, things escalated poorly right after that. So much in fact that he had to step out of the bus earlier than expected… actually he was forced out of the bus along with his Pokémon for causing a commotion.

At least they were a few blocks away from their destination, but it looked like the young clown had to try and teach his new partner the do's and don'ts. "That is why you shouldn't steal from other people, Jax." To try and enforce this into his bug type's short attention span, Hardwin narrowed his eyes for added affect.

It didn't work. At all.

Jax just scoffed at the attempt to be corrected in how to act while with others. Instead, he asked why they couldn't do whatever they wanted simply because they were more powerful than all of those people and why they didn't fight back.

"This isn't the Jungle, Jax. I'm not beating up other people senselessly just to get what I want."

Jax was shocked at that and asked what was the point of getting stronger if you weren't using it to get what you wanted.

Survival of the fittest. It was a basic ideal that really didn't fit with something like a moral code for people raised in society. "While it is true that I need more power to get my goal, that's what I only use it for, my goal. I don't abuse power getting things I don't need. That hurts me only in the long run."

Those words seemed to connect to Jax… for the wrong reasons. The bug and flying type swore that Hardwin instantly turned into a very specific shedinja from his past. And the memory slowly made his temper rise. Jax argued that the strongest got what they want when they wanted.

"And how did that work out for you against us?"

The bug type fumed and shouted out that they only won due to sheer luck.

Yet that argument worked in Hardwin's favor. "My point exactly: it doesn't matter how big or strong you think you are because life screws with everyone. Even if I lost, I would still have people behind me supporting me. You are pretty strong, but I'm guessing you were pretty lonely, weren't you?"

Jax twitched. A memory flashed in his head about a weak nincada that was bullied so much when he was young. How that same Pokémon tried so hard to beat all of his bullies, only to be kicked out by his clan elder for causing so much violence in their clan.

The memory burned fury into the bug type like never before. He cried out and attacked the first thing in front of him which happened to be Hardwin.

The young clown was tackled to the ground and yelled in panic as his own Pokémon started attacking him. Zig and Zu eventually came to the help of their partner, but Jax was strong enough to overpower the two of them. But, the two did leave an opening that allowed Hardwin to pin down the raging bug type into the sidewalk with his hand pressing on his wings. "Will you calm down!? What is your problem?"

"His problem is probably you, asshole."

At the sound of the voice, Hardwin looked up. However, he only felt a pain in his eye and felt knocked back down on the ground. It took him a second to realize that someone had knocked him into the ground.

Cupping his right eye, Hardwin then noticed two figures standing up with rather dark glares toward him.

The clown stood back up and yelled, "What the hell was that for?!"

"That's what you get for abusing your Pokémon, jackass." Now that he got a better look at them, he noticed that either he was hit so hard he was seeing double, or the two in front of him were twins with black hair and blue eyes. The latter option might have been the more sane answer, but seeing his luck so far, he wasn't going to discount some obscure reason for the former being the answer.

Still, Hardwin figured out that this was all just a misunderstanding. He was about to explain so when he noticed Jax pretending to cower in fear.

"Jax what are you doing?" That came out more deadpan that usual.

Sadly, the twins seemed to be getting the wrong message with how their expressions seemed to worsen. "Alright, jackass, there's no way we can let you get away with abusing Pokémon."

Hardwin wanted to correct them but unfortunately for him they were already taking out their Pokémon.

"Geist!" Out popped a haunter from one of them. "Cynder!" The second one brought out a vulpix.

Hardwin quickly tried to get a word in edgewise to explain that this was all a misunderstanding. He got one syllable out before the owner of the haunter ordered an attack without a second thought.

The young clown ducked under the Shadow Ball.

Thankfully, there was some silver lining to all of this. The vulpix was ordered to attack as well, but the fire type hesitated. His trainer seemed surprised. "What the? Cynder, what's wrong? Help me take care of this jerk!"

At that, Hardwin quickly pointed at that twin. "Aha! Now who's messing with their Pokémon?"

"Hey! I'm not doing that, and I don't abuse my Pokémon, you di—"

"Will you listen to me? I do care about my Pokémon! You two jumped to the wrong conclusion." The young clown had enough of this crap. If they weren't going to let him talk, he wouldn't let them talk.

Zu and Zig finally came back from being thrown away by Jax a while ago and Zu gave them a rather blunt message. " _Ya'all a bunch of twats!_ " Then the zubat turned his face towards Jax. " _And you, good sir, are a scoundrel._ " A gentleman clip was used for that line.

The fact that two other Pokémon were so ready to fight back the attackers with anger and rage on their face finally caused the twins to pause and really think about their situation. They turned towards the Ninjask who was pulling out mocking faces towards Zu and Zig.

Hardwin felt relief as he saw the two boys slowly look like they had made a huge mistake.

"Wait, so you weren't hurting your Pokémon for just disagreeing with you?" The twin with a haunter asked.

The blunette sighed before he pointed towards his newly caught Pokémon. "I didn't want to, be he's acting out like a child." As the adrenaline was going down, his face felt like something had sctrached his face and punched him in the eye. Oh wait.

"Will!" The three boys turned back in surprise at the sound of the voice. It was a girl dressed up in a frilly white dress, beret, short skirt, and long pantyhose. She looked beautiful to most people, but Hardwin recognized who she was.

"Hey, Lia." The daughter of officer jenny came up to inspect his face with worry.

The girl's expressions changed from worry into that of an alpha predator as she glared at the twins. "Did these jackasses do this to you?"

Hardwin quickly stopped her from going through another violent misunderstanding. "Lia, it was just a misunderstanding. Don't just jump to conclusions as well."

One of the twins started rubbing the back of his head. "Look man, we're sorry. We sorta jumped the gun on that one."

"It's fine," Hardwin then looked over to Lia. "Lia, sorry about this, but think I can pass on helping you out for today? I gotta get this eye some ice."

The blue-green haired girl seemed to deflate and she tried to say something, but she seemingly thought against saying what she originally was about to say. "H-Hey, don't leave just yet, alright? I feel bad this happened to you because I invited you over. I'll treat you to lunch, come on. The place I invited you over isn't too far, and my roommate works in there."

The girl perked up again and was energetic enough to push Hardwin towards the restaurant in question much to the boy's dismay.

After the two left, one twin said to the other, "That was a disaster."

"Yeah but… doesn't that blue haired guy look familiar?"

-]

Regeo Mountain, a large, singular mountain just northwest of Helio City and just a little north of Bluewood Forrest.

It was here that someone cloaked in all black started hiking up untouched path with a Natu on their shoulder. The figure took out a walkie talkie and pressed a button as another voice came back out.

"Zealot, are you en route to the pinned location?"

"Yes. I'll be there in two klicks."

"Good, just a reminder that we can't send anyone else due to the fact we're laying low from the museum attack. This is a solo mission but of great importance."

"I won't fail. Not with so much at stake. The mission will be done." Zealot closed the com device and continued walking up on foot.

…

Zealot didn't know that there was already someone there.

Just a bit ahead, a part of the mountain gave way, revealing a path that led deeper into the mountain. A cloaked figure stepped into this path, walking briskly deeper and deeper into the darkness of the cave. However, they were soon finding out that as they descended further into the cave, the path started to look less natural and more… man made. Symbols laced the walls that seemed to have long been unrecognizable between random scribbles of a child if not for how much dust and dirt had accumulated on the walls.

Soon the figure came to a stop in front of three _recently_ opened doors in a temple like structure depicting different colors despite how faded it looked.

"Who the heck is that?" Despite the area giving off vibes of a sacred and ancient place, the voice that came out and echoed through the walls was not.

"Did you really have to do that, hotshot!? Now they know that we're here!" Another voice quickly reprimanded the first voice.

"Oh please, it totally looked like whoever they are, they were looking for us—I mean why else come in here in this empty cave willingly in the first place? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, smartypants?"

"Smartypants? What are you, five?"

From the place of the first voice, a dark growl came out with a soft glow of what looked to be fire. "You better shut up or I'll fry—"

"Both of you should shut up!" A third, feminine voice called out. "This isn't the time for your petty squabbles!"

The light died down instantly as the sound of two voices went down to mutters. The figure took out a flashlight and pointed it towards the last voice they heard.

It was then that something… glided into the light. It was a dragon. No not a dragon type, an actual dragon depicted in fantasy and myth. This was a rather small dragon, only four foot tall, but this dragon had fur instead of scales with a white belly underneath their snake like appearance. It's apperance looked more like a mythological wyrm than a dragon. It was so bizarre looking that it couldn't quite possibly be considered a Pokémon.

The dragon snake bowed politely. "My name is Chocola, a Kilin."

"C-Chocola?! What are you doing!?" The second voice cried out with panic.

The golden dragons snapped her head back towards one are of the temple. "This person seems friendly enough. I don't sense any ill intentions." The figure then turned their light towards where she was looking and spotted two more dragons. One was a red dragon with similar size but stood on two hind legs and had golden wings and red scales; actually instead of a dragon, it looked more like a wyvern. The other one was a scaly blue dragon or drake on account that it had four legs and white wings.

The golden dragon then continued talking. "We don't even know how long we've been asleep. Who knows how long it's been or how much things have changed?"

The golden wyrm looked back at the cloaked figure and asked, "Who are you?"

The figure paused for a second. "… That is none of your concern." A cold and dark answer came out before the figure, in one fluid motion, pulled out something from underneath their cloak and revealed a gun pointed right at the gold one's neck.

The next thing that was heard was the sound of the weapon going off followed by a splatter of liquid and a thud.

With the sight of their friend, bleeding on the ground from a shot to the neck, the other two dragons roared with energy. Several blinding lights shined over the figure as they realized that they were being attacked.

The attack was so powerful that an explosion burst out of the opening with extreme force and caught the attention of many near and far.

"What was that!?" Zealot cried as they ordered their natu to get closer to the explosion. No sooner when they did, something speed out of the dust and downward into the lower areas of the mountain.

Zealot felt their comlink ringing again and quickly answered.

"Zealot, respond! What's going on up there!?"

"I-I don't know! I was on route when…" Zealot stopped as something else came out of the cave.

As the smoke died down, another cloaked figure met with Zealot. However, this figure removed their cloak, revealing something that horrified both Zealot and their natu.

The other figure 'winked' and the with a throw of their hand, blinked out of sight in a steam of shadows.

"Damn it all! It was them!" The trainer with a Natu cursed.

"What they're up there!?" from the other line, screams of different voices were coming in. "Zealot, get out of there! Abort the mission!"

"But if they're here—!"

"The rangers are on their way up there. Get out, now."

Zealot cursed under their breath and disabled the call. They quickly wondered what it was that left the cave, before the natu made them both escape.

* * *

The free lunch was greatly appreciated, but hardwin had to go and have a one on one talk with Jax.

"Look, Jax, we need to talk. Why did you lash out awhile ago?

The bug type said nothing for a while.

Hardwin thought back to what made him lash out in the first place and a specific line from awhile ago popped up.

"Are you," he paused for a second, choosing to be more careful with his words this time. "I… I wasn't insulting you if that's what you think I did."

Jax slowly turned to look at the boy. Hardwin slowly reached out with his hand, but stopped when the bug and flying type flinched as it got closer. The ninjasks slowly let down his guard and Hardwin caringly placed his hand on the ninja bug's head and rubbed it.

"I don't hate you unless you give me a real reason to. I've had a lot of immature tantrums in my life to recognize when someone else is doing it, so just take your time. I promise I'll be a friend to you." Hardwin, despite the scratches on his face and his black eye, he had a gentle smile as he caressed the bug type's head.

Jax was confused as to why he wasn't angry at him for doing all those things to him. _They_ would hate him. It's why he was out here.

"Well, I am angry at you for pulling crap like that, but I do really want us to be friends. Wanna start again?"

Hardwin seemed to get his answer when Jax just looked away with some hint of shame in his eyes.

"Good. Because starting tomorrow, we're going to start training, and you're going to be put through the ringer." The clown smiled as he saw his bug type try to argue and say that he wasn't someone to order around, but Hardwin ignored him.

Though, he couldn't say the same thing when he saw smoking on the mountain.

It looked pretty big, but most people—while they all paid attention to that—they also assumed that it was some kind of Pokémon battle with some powerful trainers. However, Jax seemed horrified and quickly flew towards the direction of the smoke.

"H-Hey wait, Jax! Dang it!" Hardwin threw out his other friends and pointed towards the mountain. "You two go after him. I'll catch up when I can!"

On Regeo Mountain, deep within a normal cave, two figures were pacing back and forth with worry over a third figure.

"I don't get it! We're supposed to have great power! What was that thing that pierced her body!?"

"Calm down, Mugen… it's faint… but there's magic on whatever was used. But I've never seen this type of magic before. How long have we been asleep?"

"Who cares about that!? Can't you pull the thing out, Ian? It's hurting her!"

The blue dragon like creature snarled back. "I am aware of that, but please understand that it's slowly festering in her wound. I've never seen magic like this. If I try to pull it out with just my telekinesis, something bad might happen."

The temperature around the cave grew as the red dragon started seething through his fangs. Smoke was starting to rise until a sound came from deep within the cave. "Shedinjaaaa."

The two dragons looked towards the sound of the voice to see a shedinja in the front of a clan of nincada.

"Get lost!" The red dragon snarled before being quickly reprimanded by the blue dragon.

"Mugen! This is their home; we should be the ones leaving!" The serpentine dragon bowed his head towards the ghost type. "Please forgive us for intruding, but our friend needs help."

The ghost and bug type slowly flew towards the injured golden dragon. With his eyes glowing, his body turned see-through. Then he phased into the body of the gold dragon.

"Hey!" The red dragon stopped when his friend stood in front of him. "Why are you stopping me!?"

"Because that guy is trying to help us! The last thing we need is you using your muscles and not your brain!" The blue dragon turned back to their friend as the bullet that pierced the flesh of their third friend was ejected out and quickly vanished.

The Shedinja popped back up, only looking weaker than before as his body barely seemed to stabilize back into solid form. Whatever magic that was infused with the bullet, suddenly shot out a dozen tentacles and ensnared the ghost type. The ghost elder gave an unearthly wail of pain, which prompted the blue and red dragon to try and help.

Or at least that's what they should have done.

However, the blue dragon jumped out of the way from a speeding bug type that tried to ram into him. The same couldn't be said for Mugen as the speeding Pokémon then hit him into the cave wall.

Ian noticed that it was a ninjask that had attacked at such blinding speed, which made sense since these Pokémon were capable of moving faster than human eyes could catch. But he was more than able to pin down the bug type with his psychic powers. The bug and flying type struggled against the hold, but was pinned down hard.

"What the heck was that!?" Mugen asked as he got back up from being body checked by something he hadn't seen coming.

"It's a really speedy Pokémon, I barely had time to warn you." Ian responded as he kept focus on the attacker.

The blue dragon then flinched. "Hey! More are incoming—" He had to stop what he was doing to avoid a bolt of thunder coming his way.

Jax felt the pressure lift and as he came back up, he noticed Zig and Zu following after him. he was surprised that they followed him, but the two explained that they were only here because hardwin told them to do so.

Mugen and Ian stood in ready as the other three readied themselves for a fight.

"Shedinja."

The two opposing parties stopped as they saw the shedinja, slowly floating up. For some reason Jax seemed worried, but instead…

The shedinja started to scream at him. Since no human was there, no one heard the profanities and dark cursing that the shedinja gave out towards the part flying type that simply went along the lines of being a source of trouble since the very beginning of their clan.

However, while this shouting was going on, everyone but Jax noticed how… twisted the darkness around the ghost type was getting.

The body of the ghost type suddenly started twitching. It spazzed around mid air erratically until it disturbingly stood still.

Then a crack appeared across his face.

"Oh crap!" Mugen cried out as he and Ian jumped out of the way as the body of the Shedinja started changing violently. More and more shadows circled around the hollow body until something… inhuman came out. A grotesque humanoid figure with the hollow and cracked body of the ghost bug etched into his front torso.

"Ian, what the hell is that!?"

"How the hell should I know!? We're supposed to sense when the world is imbalanced, and that is a FLIPPING clear sign of the balance getting out of whack, but I still don't sense a disturbance!"

"ꙈꙚ‼ꝏ‼Ꙉ!" The shadowy, humanoid figure roared to life. From its back the 'wing-like' spikes of the shedinja grew into long tentacles. One of them quickly scooped up the still unconscious Chocola, and several of the nincada.

"No, Chocola!" The red wyvern cried out in horror as he suddenly jumped with fire breathing in his mouth and his body glowing so bright that it looked like he was about to unleash a powerful attack.

At least that should have happened. In actuality, one of the tentacles swiped a rock off the ground and slung it into the maw of Mugen, interrupting the flames of his attack and stopping the bright light around him. In that same instant, the same tendril that threw the rock ensnared the dragon and expelled an energy that made the red dragon scream in pain.

"Mugen!" The blue dragon then tried to use an psychic type attack on the monstrosity holding his friends, however, his attacks were nullified before they made contact.

The shadowy monster stabed his tendrils into the ground, but instead of piercing the ground, they suddenly became shadows and quickly grabbed a hold of Ian's shadow with intense speed. The tendrils shot out of Ian's own shadow an ensnared him. While the dragon was fast, he wasn't expecting such an attack to happen outside the realm of normal moves and that shock left him open to attack.

Whatever that thing was, it was slowly drawing everyone closer to it's core. However, several shots of water hit the six tendrils, followed by a blast of cold wind. The result ended up freezing the tentacles, yet made the main body still untouched.

A loud-glass shattering sound was launched and then the frozen tendrils shattered, freeing everyone captive.

Te monster looked over towards the new attackers, Zig and Zu, primed and ready to fight whatever this things was that was hurting all those other creatures.

However, the monster had slowly turned its featureless face over towards a still heartbroken and frozen Jax. The two newcomers panicked as small bits of ghostly fire were fired towards their teammate and quickly moved to get him out of the way.

Zig the linoone quickly fired several Water Pulse moves at the monstrosity, only for his attacks to fail reaching the creature as well. The monster stepped back as several attacks came from behind it, revealing that the red and blue dragons were getting back up and were more than ticked off.

The three began firing whatever attack they could at the creature, but it started evading their attacks with unpredictable movements such as jumping and sticking into the ceiling and crawling like a spider to name a few unnerving moves.

While they were doing that, Zu faced Jax. " **What the heck!?** _Get your head in the game, man!_ "

Jax curled into fetal position. Muttering how he was just trying to help, how he never wanted this, how it wasn't fair.

Zu slowly listened to enough ranting to gather pieces. Jax was bullied when he was young, but when he finally got stronger and fought back, the bullies blamed him for all the commotion. Because of that, he was unjustly kicked out of his home and forced to survive on his own. It's why he was so bitter and bent on being strong in the first place, he had nothing to begin with.

"Jax." The ninjask froze as he heard Hardwin's voice coming from Zu. " _Listen,_ **kiddo,** _and listen good. You're a jerk, but you're_ _ **our**_ _jerk. And we made a promise that if you mess with one of us—you mess with all of us._ " Zu didn't say more as he went in and fired Venom Drench to in any way slow down the strange trashing monster.

The ninjask just stared in awe. On one hand, the people he was born and raised with, they abandoned him at the first opportunity. But his new… trainer… why was he so different than everyone? Why was he trying to give him a chance when you're not supposed to care for anyone else but yourself?

Meanwhile with the battle, despite it being four on one, the creature was either avoiding attacks, or nullifying them.

"Ian! Why can't we hit this guy!?" Mugen yelled.

"I'm trying to figure that out dingus! That shield he has isn't magic or psychic, I can't tell what it is! We've been asleep for to dang long, who knows what happened while we slept!?"

The monster roared before turning back to the clan of nincada. It fired more twisted versions of Will-O-Wisp towards the bug types unti Zig slid in and fired more Water Pulse attacks at the flame.

Jax just continued to stare at the fight. They weren't doing well, and he honestly… a piece of him just wanted nothing to do with them.

"J-Jax!" The bug turned around to see an exhausted and out of breath Hardwin holding himself up by leaning on his knees. "Oh god, what was I thinking run up a moutian…" He said in one hushed gasp and looked ready to collapse.

The sound of an unholy screech made the young clown look up. Needless to say the scene in front of him made his mind stop coherently working for a good moment. "What the hell is all of that?"

The figure stopped and turned towards him. Right down the middle of its face, a crack opened up revealing a sideways mouth with dozens of bloodshot eyes behind the red, glowing fangs.

To be fair, Hardwin reacted in a much more restrained manner than most people would in his situation. "I was so not prepared to see that today."

"שׁꙝꙞᾨꚅ!" The creature gave an echo of unintelligible sounds as it started running right for the boy.

"Oh crap!" Hardwin scooped up Jax to avoid the arm of the creature trying to grab him.

"What the heck is going on!?" The bluenette yelled in surprise before he noticed another bunch of attacks hitting or rather not making contact with the beast and causing it to look back.

"Hey ugly!" The red dragon cried out, glowing brightly again. "Let's see you dodge this!" Suddenly a large ring of fire surrounded him—

Until he was hit in the head by his blue ally. "You idiot! You can't use that move! There's a forest all around us!"

"Guh! Stop hitting me!" The red dragon cried out before Zig rammed into both of them to avoid a the creature from cutting them into pieces with all of its tendrils cutting the area around them.

Hardwin saw this and saw on the side there were still a clan of nincada and a dragon that looked similar to the red and blue one. "Okay, one madness at a time then. I swear it's my third Thanksgiving all over again." Hardwin's self defense mechanism was trying to be witty in the face of maddening confusion. It helped him find some semblance of collectiveness whenever things got too chaotic in a circus.

"Zu! Get the nincada out of here! You three, keep it distracted while everyone gets to safer ground, do not let it touch you!"

The red dragon snarled. "Why should we listen to—"

"Less talk, more fire blasts that don't hit any of the trees. Zig, cover him if he does!" Hardwin started running towards the clan with Zu right behind him. As he looked over towards the four foot tall dragon, he carefully slung her over his shoulder and told Zu to lead the nincada further into higher ground.

He looked back at the three who seemed to be doing as well as they were awhile ago in that they weren't doing well at all. But then, the clown decided to pay a little more attention to something.

That creature… it had a shedinja etched to his torso, right? And the attacks weren't connecting? It wasn't completely true. That creature seemed to avoiding all the fire blasts coming right towards him. That meant… it was using Wonder Guard? It would explain why he doesn't avoid all the other attacks, and why he so focused on that red dragon. It's the only one nearby that has a move to hit him.

Wait, shedinja? And nincada?

Hardwin looked over to Jax, who unlike just this morning, he was sulking and trying to hide from the other nincada who were also huddling in fear.

The clown sighed before he carefully placed down the gold dragon and let go of his newly caught Pokémon. "Jax, watch her. Protect them. Zu your with me, I have a plan."

"Nin?" The bug type asked in confusion.

Hardwin looked back at Jax then… petted him. "What am I doing? Basically, something really stupid, but I'm not abandoning those that need help."

With that, Hardwin picked up a rock and threw it at the figure, it smacked it's head and turned back towards Hardwin. "Hey guys! It's got a Wonder Guard ability! Pin it down and hit it with a fire blast!"

The attackers all looked at each other and nodded. Quickly, Zig threw a large amount of water into the ground and froze it over, trapping the feet of the creature. As it tried to move its tendrils, a large gunk of Venom Drench came on it by curtsy of Zu the poison gunk quickly hardened and a psychic power was used on them to restrain them from moving or breaking free by the blue dragon.

"Finally! Take this!" Mugen cried out as he finally unleashed a Flamethrower on the pinned down creature.

The flames grew closer and closer to the mad beast. However, something happened that no one expected. It suddenly dropped—and fell into his own shadow, ducking under the flames.

"W-Was that Shadow Sneak?!" Hardwin cried out before the other Pokémon realized that they had forgotten this thing could move into the shadows. But instead of going for them, the shadow darted quickly towards… Hardwin.

The four quickly panicked as they saw the figure leap out from the ground and launch itself with its tendrils drawn back ready to pierce the normal human boy.

Everyone, despite their best efforts, was too far away and not quick enough to stop the creature in time.

For a second, Hardwin's eyes widened, his heart stopped moving as his eyes saw the unholy creature reach over him…

But then, he heard a sound.

It was like a sonic boo—

SLASH!

A large gust of wind made the young student step back before he realized that he was still alive.

"ᾨᾨᾨᾨ‼‼" Hardwin looked up to see the creature wailing in pain and with three sliced-off tentacles. As it took a step back and let everyone see that right between the beast and the human, was Jax with both of his scythe claws shrouded in dark energy, symbolizing he had just used Night Slash to coat his blades like miniature swords.

"Jax…"

The bug type floated in the air until suddenly, he stopped his wings mid flight. It only paused for a second, before they suddenly started speeding up to the point it no longer looked like he had wings anymore.

With a loud cry, Jax vanished and in that same second, the other three tendrils of the creature were cut off. The ninjask's image appeared for a brief second nearby the others before it vanished again, which was followed by another gust of wind.

The monster did some kind of action that seemed like snarling as it quickly vanished into the ground before the area it was standing on had a large gash across it. Beneath Jax's shadow, new tendrils burst out and tried to capture the creature. However, instead of Jax, the tendrils just grabbed empty air that suddenly repulsed them from the pressure.

Everyone stared in awe, until their shock turned to horror as Jax suddenly fell down, consumed by purple flames. Unknown to everyone, but the beast, when Jax hit these tendrils that time, they were laced with a small fire that suddenly expanded a few seconds after Jax had touched them, casuing him to be enflamed and engulfed in fire.

"Jax!" Hardwin yelled as he ran to his Pokémon. Yet he slid to a stop when the monstrosity jumped out of the ground in front of him.

Slick!

The being slowly turned its head at the sound coming from its left. The ninjask was still there, one armed glowing with dark type energy and it seemed like it had been just used. The burn had cut his attack power greatly.

But he didn't need his full strength to do this. He just needed the beast to expect he was down from the count.

The beast took a step forward—only to notice his entire view was suddenly upside down. Wait. Why was his sight slowly falling to the ground despite being upside-down? His head had been severed from his neck!?

As those thoughts finally caught up with the creature, his hold on everything finally weakened and the humanoid body fell to the ground. The shadows then started to fade and nothing but a Shedinja was left.

The ninjask undid his attack. And instantly the fire around him died down. His body still felt like a furnace, and he could still feel weaker, but the battle was finally over.

"Okay, what was that." Hardwin started before pointing over towards the creatures near Zig and Zu. "And who are you guys?"

"Uuuuhhh…"

The two dragons perked up when they heard a new moaning sound. They both looked up to see their third dragon friend looking at the scene before her. "W-What happened?"

At least Hardwin knew one thing: he wasn't the only one lost in all of this.

* * *

"Okay, Okay. So you're telling me… you guys… are the Kilin? I thought they were an ancient civilization?" Hardwin couldn't believe it, yet now that he got a closer look at the three. They did look vaguely like the pictures of the bell and other artifacts from the museum.

"The Kilin aren't a civilization. That's us. We had a bunch of people who worshiped us though." Mugen, the red dragon huffed with pride. "It was pretty cool."

"Had being the key word there, Mugen." Ian, the blue dragon turned back to Hardwin. "You said ancient civilization. How old are they to you?"

Hardwin swore if he wasn't so used to Zu, talking Pokémon would be weirding him out. Actually it still was since Zu spoke in clips than proper language. "Uh right. From what the experts said, they date back to the legendary cities of Pokélantis, if not older. So that's like… around 1,000,000 years ago."

The red dragon's eyes widened and his maw dropped. "I'm sorry, what!? 1,000,000 years ago?!"

Hardwin flinched backward. "I-I think they said it was older than that."

"Mugen, calm down, he's at least helping us." The yellow dragon, Chocola, she introduced herself as, tried to calm down her friend while Hardwin was putting the bandage around her neck. He did keep some first aid kit around him since he was a trainer.

"At least he isn't like that one being that we first met." Mugen snarled at the memory.

"Now that confuses me. Someone, shot you?" The blue haired trainer spoke up.

"Shot? I'm not familiar with that expression. I'm sure our telepathy should be translating your language to ours, but then again magic is far different than I recall."

"Magic? Not a lot of people believe in magic besides the ones legendary Pokémon can perform." Hardwin shook his head. "Well uhh, a lot has changed in a million years. For one, there's a significant less amount of tyrantrum running around."

"I was wondering where they had all gone." Ian noted out loud before looking around. "But from the sound of things, so much really has changed while we are gone. … What are those spherical devices you're carrying?"

"Huh? Oh these? These are Pokémon Balls, or Poké Balls for short. It technically means that Pokémon can be—well—brought in our pockets."

"Why would you do that? Can't they just go wherever they want?" The red dragon brought up.

"Uhhh that… is a good question. I mean, I never really used them a lot myself but I guess it's been a part of my society for a long time that I never questioned it as much."

"Guys?" Chocola spoke up after Hardwin put the finishing touches around her neck. Despite getting pierced by a bullet, it seemed like it didn't fully pierce her skin, which was a good thing. However, the magic was doing something to her powers, making her feel much weaker than before.

"What are we going to do now?"

"Well from what I understand, the world has changed a significant amount in the time we've slept. Not only that, I'm getting the distinct feeling that something bad is going on even though we still can't seemingly sense what is wrong with the world."

"Are ya sure it wasn't the person who just tried to kill Chocola?"

"Mugen, I was alluding to that."

"Allu what?"

"Dear god, you're an idiot."

Mugen rose with a flare. "What did you say, smartypants!?"

"Both of you, shut up!" To the blue and red dragon's surprise, both Chocola and Hardwin yelled at the same time.

"Why don't we stick around Hardwin and his friends for a while? He seems to know what's going on." Chochola offered.

Hardwin nodded at the fact, until he repeated that line in his head and did heard his mind scratching a record abruptly. "Wait what?"

"Well, he is the only one so far to help us and give us some basic information. Staying with him would be our best option in this new age."

"He fought for us and helped us win! That's a big yes from me!" Mugen agreed with Ian for once.

"Wait don't I get a say in this?!" Hardwin started. How the heck was he supposed to take care of three potentially legendary Pokémon!? He was in a school dang it!

"Well you can save all of that stuff later. So what kind of foods do they have in the future?" Mugen asked.

Hardwin opened his mouth, but despite his best intentions—or the fact the sheer incredibility of this situation had left his mind temporarily incapacitated—he couldn't find a way to turn these guys away.

The clown boy sighed before looking back to see Jax seemingly talking with the shedinja and the nincada. They were talking for a while, but it seemed like they were finally ending with all of them heading back into the cave.

Jax, followed by Zig and Zu, floated up to Hardwin.

"… Jask."

Hardwin gave a small smile and reached out to pet the bug type. "Apology accepted. How was your talk?"

Difficult, but he did something he never thought he would do. Jax thanked them for pushing him away since he wouldn't have gotten this strong if it wasn't for that. What happened next was them somewhat inviting them back into the clan since the elder believed he didn't have much time left.

Jax, respectfully declined. He was thankful, but at the same time, he said he would never forgive any of them for unjustly kicking him out.

"Wow, a-are you sure about that?" Hardwin asked carefully at the rather cold thing he told them.

The ninjask explained simply, when he needed help none of them helped him. A better man would forgive them, but he admitted he wasn't and the painful time he had all alone out there did not help him. Maybe he will forgive them, but that will only probably happen if he stayed with Hardwin long enough.

In the end, Jax admitted he wasn't any good at doing anything but fighting, but if Hardwin would have him, he wanted to learn how to be a better person.

"I-I'm not that good of a person as you're making me out to be, Jax. I just… know what's it's like to feel like the world is against you." He admitted with a sigh. "But I can promise we can try to be better people together. Is that alright?"

Jax put out his claw, and Hardwin shook on it.

The moment seemed nice… until everyone heard sniffing.

They all turned towards Mugen who was sniffing in his eyes.

"Are you… crying?"

"N-No! I-I just got something in my eye is all!" The red dragon snapped quickly.

"Aww, Mugen, I thought it was pretty sweet too." Chocola cooed in agreement.

"Shut up!"

Ian chimed in agreement. "There's nothing wrong with feeling emotional response from that."

Smoke started coming from Mugen's mouth before he flared at Ian, telling him to shut up. However, because he did so, Ian avoided the blast and it ended up flying towards Hardwin. The young boy tilted to the right to avoid the blast, but his coat got caught on fire.

"Oh crap!" Hardwin stood up before looking at Zig. "Use Water Pulse—"

Unfortunately, in his panic, Zig used a Water Pulse much stronger than he intended. It didn't hurt Hardwin, but it did imbalance him causing him to fall…

While he was on a mountain path…

" _Black Copter down, Black Copter down! Men, time to save our captain!_ " Zu cried out before all six Pokémon sped after the falling teen.

* * *

"… (I see so what your saying is that the spell you used to summon that fragment… did not work?)…"

"(I had underestimated them. Forgive me. I imagined that it was more than enough, but it appears they had more resistance than I expected.)"

"(No matter. If our enemies are preparing their pawns… so must we.)

* * *

 **A/N:** Finally! You guys have no idea how long this took to write! So many things came in that really slowed down this process, but hopefully the next chapter will not be as long.

Okay for this chapter, the following had their characters star in.

Hofund: (Three using one account.) They all made Chocola, Mugen, and Ian as fan Pokémon. It was really something unique so I incorporated them into the story.

The King of Ranting: He made the twins that appeared as more of a cameo, but they'll appear again soon.

Sorry again for taking so long, but things in my life are picking up again so this may update slower again. Sorry.


	7. Ch 7: Looking Up From Below

… **I am so sorry. I… I have no excuse, it's just…. I'm just sorry guys.**

* * *

"Hardwin?" Lia had arrived to Cain's Cabin just as Hardwin asked, it was late at night but she saw the lights were on.

She saw the blue haired clown holding an ice pack before she saw three unknown creatures staring right back at her.

"Hardwin, who are these—"

"Hey, she's kinda hot." That voice caught her attention as she realized that those voices came from the creatures in front of her.

"Mugen!" The yellow dragon snapped.

"Of course you would focus only on that…" The blue dragon, Ian, stated coldly.

In response to this, Mugen the red dragon bumped heads with the blue dragon, cuasing a slight power struggle. "You want a go, blue scales?!"

The three creatures started arguing with each other until Zu flew in and inhaled.

" _SIIILLLLEEENNNCEEEE! You are in the presence of a king!_ **Ya'll should be ashamed of your selves. Especially you, Brian.** "

"My name's not Brian." Mugen snarled. "Do that again, bat, and I'll fry you!"

"Mugen, please do not." Hardwin walked over to the red dragon before looking over to Lia. "Hey, how's it going?"

"Hardwin, what is going on?" The daughter of Police Chief Jenny asked in confusion due to the strange creatures in front of her.

The blue haired clown sighed. "Sit down; it's going to be a long story."

* * *

It was hard to stop himself from yawning even though it was already almost one in the afternoon.

Hardwin looked over his notes and groaned. He could barely understand anything he wrote down. Ugh, he could practically hear his Auntie Clarice looking over his shoulder and shaking her head in shame for not being 'academically adept'.

He really hated homework. He hated the fact he fell of a mountain, He hated how his eye was throbbing all the time since he got it and how a black eye came back after finally healing.

Worst of all, Hardwin hated how that all happened in a school night.

The educational system is out to get him.

When he got out of class, he looked up the map of the school. He was to head to building Z-4 in room 201.

This was to be the room where the top ten ranked students among the freshmen were to meet. Who knows what kind of people they were. At least Vincent would be here, so there was that.

The building itself looked elaborate, it looked more like a tower than most of the rectangular based buildings, the academy had. And if he heard some other older students call it, the War Zone. Why was it called that?

When he entered into the building the first thing he noticed was the statues of legendary Pokémon from across the world. From Kanto to Alola, there were sculptures of many of the main legendary Pokémon.

He walked passed them and saw one of the elevators in the center of the room. As he entered into the second floor, a voice came out to him.

"Hold that please!"

Hardwin did so, as someone came into the small lift with him. A beautiful girl with orange hair reaching to the back of her shoulders and wearing a master ball earring on her right ear stepped in while carrying her bag and wearing the female uniform of Battlecraft Academy without stockings, leaving some guys and a few girls to stare at her legs.

"Ahh Thank you! Second floor please, oh you're going there too?"

Harwin yawned lazily. Honestly, in his vision the girl looked somewhat blurry to him. "Yeah. Room 201."

"Oooh! I'm going up there too!" She gasped as she put a hand near her mouth. "No way! You're one of the top ten ranked!? Which one are you?"

"Uhh, I'm number ten?" He still thought it was some kind of mistake to put him as number ten when he hadn't even won a badge yet.

"Oh cool! I'm number 2, Lissia Cypress. Nice to meet you." The girl tilted her head as she gave a cute smile.

Alas, currently Hardwin was still having trouble seeing beyond a smudge in his eyes. Maybe he should get those checked. "Ah. I'm Hardwin Wilburg, but I mostly go by Will for short." The blue haired clown spoke up casually. There was a ding in the elevator as the door opened up. "So are you heading towards room…"

The boy froze mid sentence as right in front of him was a windmill. No, he wasn't hallucinating, there was a windmill in a small—okay large room that was filled with grass and shallow water that was around ankle high and… where those floating platforms?

"Oooh! Ooh! Will, over there, at the boardwalk!" Lissia pointed excitedly as Hardwin looked on.

There were gathered people in that area. However, Will noticed someone familiar among that group. It was hard not to, the man towered over everyone.

"Ahh! If it isn't young Wilburg! Come come! You and Ms. Cypress are the last ones!"

"Mr. Stark?" The young clown wasn't expecting to see the former Ferrum League Champion to appear again. As he came closer, he noticed the other people that were in front of him, all of them wearing a single sword crest on their uniforms to signal they were also first years.

The large man clapped his hands together. "Now that we are all here it is time for some introductions! You have all been placed within the top ten of the ranking system here in Battlecraft Academy, so with that in mind we can go start with the lowest rank first."

Mr. Stark looked towards Hardwin. "Number 10?"

"I-I'm Hardwin Wilburg, but I just go by Will since it's easier." The blunette raised his hand as he introduced himself.

The former champion nodded before looking towards his right. "Number 9?"

All eyes turned towards a rather tall, a little muscular woman with dark skin, hazel eyes, and curly hair. She wore a lot of professional make up. "Beatrice Santello, but I go by Bea." She calmly stated.

"Splendid! Though we could use a lot more spirit! Number 8?"

Hardwin turned his head towards where the next student was. His eyes visibly widened as he recognized who it was.

"I-I'm Tom Specter." It was one of the twins that attacked him yesterday. He was here? Oi vey.

Glenn rubbed the back of his head. "Come on now, I know you're all new here, but you guys are going to be seeing each other for a quite a while, so make sure your first impressions last!" Hardwin fought the urge to look at Tom Specter's way since their first impression was a fist to the recently healed eye. "Number 7, it's your turn!"

Vincent gave a rather showy introduction. Hardwin supposed that wasn't surprising since he knew he would be there before hand and that they were roommates. (That reminded him: why did Vincent keep telling him he swore he heard running water around their room? Where they near some pipes or something? It wasn't like Magi was flopping around in their room while they were gone. Besides, he left him with Cain along with the Kilin today.)

"Ahh! Now we're getting somewhere! Number 6!"

"Hi, I'm Mira Balthezar!" That name sounded very familiar coming from the somewhat petite girl with pink, short hair with small pig tails and brown eyes he swore he saw before.

"Hey, are you related to the vice president?" Vincent noted out before everyone did recall seeing the VP in front of a large screen for all of them to see.

"Yep! I came to my school because of my beloved big brother!~" Why did Hardwin have a feeling to stay clear away from her? She just said that she loved her brother, isn't that how siblings go?

"Number 5?" Glenn moved along the introductions, somehow either ignoring or not noticing the air around Mira.

There was a young man with brown short hair, blue eyes, and a cocky smirk across his face while he was leaning on a tree nearby. "Hmph! Calus Obidaga, remember the name, because it won't be long before I get the number one spot!"

"(Okay, why do I meet so many cocky people lately?)" Hardwin thought to himself silently as he raised his brow at the orange haired boy who went back onto leaning on the tree.

"Confidence, I like it." Glenn saw the positive in the boy that not many others wanted to see.

"To make things easier, I'm number 4: Vode Beral, and no, I care little whether or not we become friends." A red head with his hair swept back, yellow eyed, glasses wearing man standing behind Glenn spoke up before shutting himself up.

"How rude!" A female with long flowing purple hair and gray eyes proclaimed with a loud voice as she fanned herself with an elegant and expensive looking fan. "And here I thought the top ten for this year wouldn't be such uncouth rapscallions. If not for our teacher here, I very much loathe the idea of you even knowing my name, but it's Athena Trembon. Do not associate me with my name, only address me as Duchess."

Glenn sighed at seeing how this was going on. "Now now, calm down everyone. Will numbers two then one please speak up?"

"Oooh! Ooh!" Lissia spoke up before introducing herself. She seemed to like Mira or be like her without the strange and creepy undertone.

Which left number one. Everyone looked towards the last person; she was a beautiful woman with long black hair reaching the back of her waist and some of the most noticeable amber eyes.

"Dane Adara." That was all she said.

Glenn sighed again. "Well that could have honestly gone worse. But welcome one and all to a special class reserved for the top ten students in each year!"

It was then that number nine, Beatrice, or Bea for short, raised her hand. "Mr. Glenn, there is a mistake. I don't understand how I was placed so high among the first years when I performed just as well as anyone could have in their initiation battle."

That caught Hardwin's attention since he actually lost his initiation match. He thought he was only here who was brought here because of 'events' beyond his control.

"Unfortunately, the headmaster of this school is known to be eccentric." Everyone remained silent after that sentence. It seems as if Hardwin wasn't the only one who had met with the unpredictable man.

"Why the heck does everyone listen to such an idiot anyway?" Calus asked.

Glenn actually smirked. "You'd be surprised how sharp he is under the right circumstance, and as for you, Ms. Santello, you might not feel as you belong here, along with some other students, but to everyone's surprise the students Drake has chosen end up surprising everyone, themselves included except him. This school's Student Council President, Scarlet Amelia, was chosen out of nowhere to be among the top ten freshmen in her year and now she's the top among the fourth years."

That surprised Hardwin in a different way. Did the headmaster see something in him?

The former champion clapped his hands together. "Now then, while you are all still the top ten, there is a special rule in this school. For trainers and coordinators here in Battlecraft, the curriculum is a lot more competitive."

And so he explained that how the ranking system in the school worked was as followed: Among the first four years, there are ten top trainers chosen by the headmaster and the older top ten students. This was the initial stage, since for battling, anything can happen. As such, there was a possibility for everyone to change here in the following week.

"This will begin the first Battle Week, which will properly determine the top ten seats for the next year. The reason all of you are here is a combination of the Sophomore's top ten students choosing along with choices from the teachers from watching your initial battles. However, this week will determine if you are worthy enough to keep those seats along with properly defining your actual ranks."

"Since there are over hundreds of students logged in as battlers. Therefore to weed out everyone until there are at least 24 left, the office has decided to… give me a second here…" Glenn took out a note before he read aloud.

"There will be Pokémon Trails based on the Pokéathlon game events where the top three chosen for each event will participate in the top thirty bracket system. The games are designed to challenge each Pokémon in a different area, as well as come up with new obstacles for them and their trainers to overcome." He finished reading the note out loud.

"We have to play games in order to keep our rank?" Vode raised his brow.

"It's supposed to promote friendly competition, Mr. Beral, could you imagine having a bracket tournament of around 1000 students?" Glenn calmly explained.

"Ha! It doesn't matter what it is, I'll prove to you all that the number one seat belongs to me!" Calus Obidaga proclaimed.

Hardwin was having a serious case of déjà vu right now, but said nothing.

"The only number one seat that belongs to you is a backseat to how badly you're going to make a fool out of yourself."

It wasn't the same for Vincent as he started to quip back.

However, Calus surprisingly remained cool and only replied, "Ooh sorry, I would but it has your name written all over it."

That was the straw that broke the camerupt's back as they all started to argue with one another.

The blue haired boy wisely stepped back, a good thing he did as well since it looked like everyone but him, Vode, Dane, and Beatrice were starting to get very vocal with each other.

* * *

"I'm kicking that guy's ass from here to Kalos." Vincent muttered while he and Hardwin walked out of the session, much to the clown's eternal gratitude to be out of that nightmare realm.

"No offense or anything, Vincent, but I think this guy actually has the skills to back up his boasts." Considering Calus actually had a fair amount of good comebacks to Vincent's banter, he probably was smarter than he let on.

"Doesn't matter, if we face him, we're kicking his ass in the Pokéatholon contests."

Hardwin stopped in his tracks as he looked up to his friend. "We?"

"Well yeah, we gotta sign up for them too if we wanna keep our spots."

"I dunno, I'm kind of thinking I don't really deserve to be there. Plus, the guys there are all… well most of them don't give off good vibes, so maybe avoiding them might be for the best."

Vincent seemed surprised at that kind of talk. "Dude really?"

Hardwin turned back to his roommate. "You do remember that I've technically never won a single badge before coming to this school, right? And my purpose for coming here wasn't to be the best, it was just…" It was just so he could be happy and be tired of looking down upon along with his Pokémon. "I don't think that it's for me or for my Pokémon. We could barely keep up with a fully evolved Pokémon." Not to mention there was also the thing that happened yesterday. There was something obviously going on here that was more than meets the eye. But why was it out of all the skilled trainers here, he was the one to stumble on to that? "But then again, I'd have to ask them, they all love being strong."

Vincent seemed to quiet up. "Kind of a shame, you're one of the few people I like in there. We could probably use more normal people in it than just those egos," Hardwin rolled his eyes at the man who has his own fan base here in the school. "But then again, I could see why Mr. Drake put you and that Beatrice girl in the group."

He looked on surprised. "Why?"

Vincent smiled as he started taking a different path from his roommate. "I'll leave that to you." And then he saluted his roommate and went on through the different path.

Hardwin sighed. His schedule was free today, which meant that he had to get back to…

" _Incoming!_ " Zu cried out, making the clown instantly duck for cover.

As he did, he looked back and avoided a stray moving coming their direction. It wasn't that dangerous honestly, it seemed to be a string shot attack.

"My apologizes. I hadn't had the faintest idea you would be in that direction."

Much to Hardwin's growing unease, the young man snapped back to his zubat playing a funeral theme before looking back at the owner.

"H-Hey Maria?" He did not remember her having a caterpie before. Though the look on the small green bug's face was the same as Hardwin was feeling right now. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. I noticed you take quite on the up take: Ms. Hulia already?"

"Excuse me?" The young teen tilted his head. "Up on the take? Oh! Do you mean after the museum, you saw me leave with Lia? Oh, right, she wanted my help confirming something that happened during the attack."

"I see…" Maria seemed unconvinced. "Well do excuse me Mr. Wilburg, but I do have other business to attend to."

Will just wanted to groan and did so. "Great, the first girl I fancy and she thinks I'm a player!" He put his hand on his head and sighed deeply. "The list just goes on and on…"

* * *

" _We interrupt this program to bring you—Courage, The Cowardly Lillipup Show! Starring: Courage, The Cowardly Lillipup!_ " The television yelled out loud, causing Hardwin to spot the three Kilin creatures sitting in front of a couch seemingly mesmerized by the boxed screen.

"Amazing! The screen that was once silent and black… is now colorful and making sounds! What is this fantastical contraption?" Ian stared a little too creepily at the TV.

"Hey down and front! I feel like watching this screen for a long period of time without any consequence of what happens in the world around me." Mugen droned on.

"…Is Chocola supposed to be drooling like a potato?" Hardwin whispered as the one who probably would be the calmest, was now the least responsive.

Cain looked actually tired now that Hardwin noticed him. "Uhh what happened?"

"They…" The officer looked back at his kitchen for the newcomers to—oh. Oh god. "Apparently the only technology they don't find scary is the television."

"Oh, I am so sorry." Hardwin could now say he saw a sink could burn. "I didn't know they would be such a hassle to you."

"It's fine. I still owe you for saving my job in the first place, and all things considered, having legendaries in my house is… quite the experience."

At this point, Lia walked in to the room as well. "Hardwin."

The bleu haired young man turned to her with anticipation. "So? Did you find anything on the mysterious attackers on the museum?"

The daughter of Officer Jenny shook her head. "No I didn't. Or rather, my mother is also at a loss. There's no sign of those people, but with how they erased their presence like that, it shows they are highly organized."

The clown didn't like the sound of that. "So what now?"

"For now, these Pokémon have to stay here and hidden. I doubt we can hide them in the school with the Ranking games coming soon. Too many people will be all over Helios city and beyond to train their party for a shot at the top ten. What about you? Your seat isn't solidified because of it."

Hardwin rubbed his head. "… I thought about it a bit, and I decided to earnestly go for my spot. It's going to be an uphill battle, but something tells me I should give it my all."

To respond to the simple answer, Lia smirked. "Alright then, it's not fun if I don't have a friend in this. Hey, how about a battle between you and me?"

Before Hardwin could elaborate more, he was distracted by a loud sound from the television.

"Oh wait a second. I remember that episode: the monster of that episode gave me nightmares for weeks." The boy distractedly commented on.

No sooner than he said this, a rather scary looking monster appeared on the kid's show. " _RETURN THE SLAB~ OR SUFFER MY CURSE~_ "

Ian reacted accordingly to seeing the fake monster, "WHAT IN THE NINE CIRCLES OF HELL IS THAT!?" and prompted his other two friends to react in similar fashions.

"AAAAHHH!?" Mugen panicked and quickly fired his flame breath at the monstrosity.

Wait a second.

Hardwin futilely tried to calm the dragons down. "Mugen, sto—"

Needless to say, it seemed like Cain would have to worry more than just his kitchen.

As most of Lia's Pokémon were fixing the cabin up, Hardwin was glaring at the three dragons.

"I said I was sorry! It looked even scarier than that thing that attacked us back in the mountain!"

Hardwin sighed and put a hand on his head. "Okay, maybe it was a bad idea to let you watch a children's sho—."

"You let kids watch that eldritch horror? What kind of mad future is this?!" Ian asked in horror.

"Okay that is not the point," Hardwin looked over to the Lia. "Sorry, looks like I'm going to have to pass on that battle for today. Do you have everything under control here? I'd like to go and visit some of these trail myself."

The girl sadly nodded. "No problem. Be safe, Hardwin."

* * *

Hardwin was back at school with his Pokémon following him. They were currently in one of the main gyms of the area.

"So," Hardwin began reading a book about the events. "According to this, there are five special categories and in order to qualify, we have to place first in all of them to be entered into the tournament." Fighting the urge to sigh, the clown continued on. "The bright side is that I at least have to one game and according to this, there are three games for each skill. Which means I'm allowed three tries for each game."

The clown looked to his Pokémon. "Okay, I think we should start with the speed section, to see how it'll go. According to the map, the closest one that seems to give us the most edge is Pennant Capture. It's basically like Capture The Flag game, only more battle oriented."

The young man and his three Pokémon entered into one of the arenas of the place. To his surprise, he actually saw someone inside the sad box arena with some Pokémon inside.

It was a girl that looked like a kid, maybe just shy of being close to five feet. She had big blue eyes, a really childish and round face with dimples. Her hair was berry blonde and tied up in an adorable bun.

Hardwin had half a mind to ask what a kid was doing there, but he suppressed it since he actually waited and noticed the uniform the girl was wearing: it was a Battlecraft Academy uniform with two blades, signaling she was a second year and as such, older than him.

Seeing that, he turned around. "Oh uh, sorry about that. I thought this place was empty. I'll just—"

"WWWAAAIIIT!" The girl cried out before she ran up towards Hardwin. The Pokémon that followed her seemed to be all fairy types. "You're a freshmen, aren't you?"

Hardwin nodded once.

"Whoo hoo! Great!" The girl excitedly punched the air. "This works out amazingly! I can have a partner to practice PokéAthlon games with!"

The blown clown blinked. "Uuuuhhhh…"

The smaller girl seemed to be hit with realization. "Whoopsie! Silly me, I never introduced myself, did I? The name's Micheala Cinder Fullbright, but you can call me Kayla for short, or Senpai!" She practically beamed at the thought of being called a Senpai.

"O-Oh, I'm Hardwin Wilburg, but I just go by Will for short…. Senpai?"

Kayla seemed to squeal in delight before pointing back to the field. "Now let's get to practicing!"

Hardwin and his Pokémon watched as Kayla moved back towards the sand box. The young clown wondered how he got caught up in the girl's pace before sighing and going along. He might as well get full access in how this would work.

Eventually, Kayla explained how this would work out. First, a trainer would use three, or in Hardwin's case all of his Pokémon. Next the first Pokémon among the three would start at a marked line and wait for the timer to start.

The arena will activate and randomly summon flags at random intervals across the arena. The first Pokémon was gather as many flags as they can and when they return, the computer will count how much one Pokémon has captured. However, the first Pokémon must be cycled out with the second stand by when they deposit their flags. It will then be the Second's turn to do the same until the third and then back to the first, and they will continue to cycle this until the timer runs out and whoever has the most at the end wins.

However, it is also a pokémon battle, trainers will order their Pokémon to attack others and such while the other pokémon are gathering flags and can even steal some.

The game was simple, Hardwin thought. Soon he was setting up the team as followed: Jax first, followed by Zu, then lastly was Zig.

Kayla had her Pokémon. First was a carbink named Carla, a cutiefly that went by the name of Connie, and Flora, a white flower florges.

"Are you ready, my adorable junior?" Kayla huffed like a little girl trying to be an adult. Hardwin felt somewhat awkward to answer to that, but he did nod at her. "Great! I'll set this game to five minutes!"

Soon, a large hologram of numbers counting down appeared before both the pokémon. This made Hardwin tense before they were signaled to go.

Jax sped out first, collecting many flags as he could as he zipped around the arena, collecting flags that seemed to pop up from the ground. However, to Hardwin's surprise, Kayla and her carbink made no move outside a small hop beyond the starting line.

'What is she up to?' Hardwin worried as Jax came speeding back towards the starting line with like a dozen flags on his person.

It was then that Kayla shouted, "Now, Carla!"

The carbink started to glow and then Jax suddenly slammed into a invisible glass wall like a bug type randomly hitting a car windshield. It was a reflect move and all the flags phased through the psychic wall and fell harmlessly to Carla. The carbink smiled and somehow juggled all of Jax's flags and hopped back into the starting entrance, prompting the cutiefly Connie to fly quickly out.

Hardwin heard Kayla laugh. "Come on, junior! You gotta use your moves wisely!"

The blue haired boy was starting to get it. As Jax angrily fumed, the blue haired clown cried out. "Jax, silence command!"

The cry confused the older, but smaller second year before Ninjask suddenly used Dig in the sand. This time, Jax was moving even faster underground, plucking the flags from underneath and preventing even Connie from picking some up.

"Connie, he's too fast! Use—"before Kayla could even start her command, a huge pile of sand burst out, revealing Jax jumping out and smashing Connie with intense speed and power into the sand before going back down and picking up more flags.

Ninjask went in, carrying a large amount of flags as Zu flew in. "Twist!" Hardwin suddenly called out, making the zubat twist mid air and look back towards them before heading back out into the field. "Now, use Haze!"

Zu unleashed a thick fog that covered the battle field. Kayla saw this and glanced over to Hardwin, instantly figuring out that zubat would be the only one to see through the Haze while Connie couldn't. "You clever dastard!"

Hardwin returned the half insult, half compliment with a smirk. "I learned that from my senpai."

"This won't stop us! Connie, Fairy Wind! Blow the haze away!" Kayla dramatically declared as she looked back to the field.

The clone smirked as Zu came out of the smoke screen with a mouth of half a dozen flags, signaling it was Zig's turn as he dashed in quickly.

"W-What are you doing, Connie!? Use Fairy Wind to blow it away!"

This time, the cutie fly did so, blowing away the Haze and revealing that Zig was already gathering a good amount of flags.

"I don't know what you did, but two can play at that game! Connie, Stun Spore into Fairy Wind!" The little fairy type shot a special spore around it before quickly blasting it in a wide spread wind. It didn't do much damage since it was so wide spread, but that wasn't the purpose of the attack. It was meant to slow down Zig, which it did.

"Crap."  
"Go, Connie!"

The cutie fly then raced, getting a few flags that were bigger than her before reaching the line and switching with Flora, the white flower florges. The evolved Pokémon, made a special dance before shooting an energy blast into the sand.

As soon as it was absorbed, grass started sprouting out, signaling that the move that was just used was Grassy Terrain. With grand hand movements, Flora made the grass move to her whim, and pluck and throw all the flags back towards her.

With Zig still paralyzed he had a hard time moving and tried to get back up…

But then the buzzer rang.

The game was over and the winner was Kayla and her team.

"Yes, I won!" Kayla laughed before looking towards Hardwin. "You did great, junior! That was actually well done on your part!"

Hardwin still remained calm. "Thank you. It was my first match, so I was really glad to learn how these games would go. I really have to be careful of status moves…" However, the young boy seemed to look at Kayla with bafflement. "By the way… senpai… why exactly where you here in the first place? Aren't only the freshmen doing their Pokéathlon games?"

For the first time, Kayla's energy seemed to die down a little. "The freshmen are always the first. The sophomores have their race to the top ten after the freshmen and so on and so forth. I came here because last year, I lost badly at the games! This time, I'm gunning for the top ten seats!"

Hardwin was surprised. "You really want to be the best?"

"Yep! I wanna show everyone that fairy type pokémon are not to be messed with!" The strawberry blonde haired girl proclaimed. "What about you?"

At the return of the question, Hardwin found himself reflecting harder than he thought he was. "I… don't have something as iron clad as your ambition. I wanted to be a trainer, so that people wouldn't laugh at me originally. But now? People, including myself seem to look down on me a lot still." The clown began with realization. "In other words, I'm still fighting to gain respect."

"Wow! That's kinda deep! But that's also super easy with the way you battle! It's so out there!"

Hardwin smiled at the simple comments coming his way. "Thanks, senpai."

"No problem! Now we got fourteen more games to go!"

This was the part where Hardwin and his Pokémon heard the sound of Zu playing a record being abruptly scratched noise.

"Excuse me?" hardwin asked innocently."

"You gotta get at least five wins right? That means we still have fourteen more games to practice until we're unbeatable! I mean, I am so glad I stumbled on to a practice partner like you!"

"U-Uh, Senpai?" The boy tried to call out to her. However, the girl quickly pointed to the next area energetically.

"Come on, junior! We've got more games to train for!" Much to the dismay of Hardwin, Kayla went off with her Pokémon looking somewhat apologetic for their too carefree trainer.

Hardwin sighed as the rest of his pokémon groaned.

This was going to be a long week.

* * *

 **AN: Again, I am so sorry. It took a lot, and I mean a lot. Before I could even get back to this. Hopefully the next chapter doesn't come out that far in the future then.**

 **It didn't help that previously I had this crippling writter's block in what to do with this story. But now? I have some ideas on what to do, and I am working on introducing your characters, but I made some of my own Original chracters for sepcific reasons. (I kinda needed more girls than I thought I would.)**

 **(Also, I'm planning to add some new rules into the Syoc, becuase now with a fresh mind, i've noticed some mistakes I made.)**

 **Micheala Cinder Fullbright, or Kayla is made by Oily in Flight  
**

 **Beatrice Santello, goes by Bea is submitted by 's Fire  
**

 **Anyway that's all for now. Hopefully the next chapter will come sooner.  
**


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